.TTLEGR.OUN 
NTUP^E^ 




IFTi 



C! 





Class 

Book rJ^- 7 

GopyrightN" 



coPYRiGirr DEPosrr 



•JSp Clifton STobiiBon 



BATTLEGROUND ADVENTURES. Illustrated. 
A BOOK OF FAIRY-TALE FOXES. Illustrated. 
A BOOK OF FAIRY-TALE BEARS. Illustrated. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
Boston and New York 



Battleground Adventures 




THE CAPTURE OF JOHN BROWN 



BATTLEGROUND 
ADVENTURES 

THE STORIES OF 

DWELLERS ON THE SCENES OF 

CONFLICT IN SOME OF THE 

MOST NOTABLE BATTLES 

OF THE CIVIL WAR 

COLLECTED IN PERSONAL INTERVIEWS BY 

CLIFTON JOHNSON 



Illustrated by 
Rodney Thomson 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(3rf)e iSiberisiDe jpcejS? €ambcibge 

1915 






COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY CLIFTON JOHNSON 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published November iqis 



i 










•^^"^ 22 19/5 V 



Preface 

These battleground experiences cover what is probably 
the only important phase of the Civil War that has not 
been adequately treated. They view the struggle from the 
standpoint of the home. Here you see the terror and pa- 
thos, the hardships and tragedy, through the eyes of those 
who lived where some of the greatest conflicts of the war 
occurred. You see how property was destroyed and indus- 
try disrupted, and how much the people not directly con- 
cerned in the fighting suffered. There are, besides, glimpses 
of life as it was antedating the war, and of the aftermath of 
adjustment to new conditions, and of the superstitions that 
populate the battlefields with ghosts of the former con- 
tendants. 

The material for the volume was gathered in 1913, nearly 
fifty years after the war ended. Some of the narrators were 
small children in the Civil War days, but whatever their 
age had been the incidents of that chaotic time were indeli- 
bly impressed on their memories. They told of what they 
had seen with convincing vividness, and fortunately, also, 
with much of humor and picturesqueness. 

I have recorded what they said as frankly as they related 
it, and in their own language, whether that was one of edu- 
cation and culture or of rude illiteracy. Possibly some por- 
tions would be pleasanter reading were certain of the hor- 
rors omitted. But why should we not face the reality and 
see war in all its savagery? Nothing can so hasten the com- 
ing of the time when war as a method of settling disputes 



vi Preface 

will not be tolerated as a clear understanding of its essential 
barbarism. 

Occasionally an informant has misapprehended the 
character and purposes and acts of the other side, but these 
misapprehensions are worthy of record because they reveal 
a mental attitude which was not without its effect in mak- 
ing the conflict more bitter. Of similar value are the com- 
ments of the blacks on the whites and those of the whites 
on the blacks, though sometimes uncharitable and unjust. 

It is all very human, and my purpose has been to get a 
free and genuine expression of both recollection and feeling 
and to retain as far as possible the personality of each of the 
many speakers. 

Clifton Johnson. 

Hadley, Mass. 



Contents 

John Brown's Raid 

I. THE storekeeper's SON AT HARPER'S FERRY . 1 

ii. the prisoner 10 

iii. the watchman on the bridge . • . . .22 
iv. the free jakes 32 

Bull Run 

V. THE farmer's DAUGHTER 37 

vi. the slave blacksmith 54 

Shiloh 

VII. THE widow's son 61 

viii. a battlefield farmer 71 

ix. the refugees 85 

Antietam 

x. the hired man 93 

xi. the slave foreman 104 

xii. the slave woman at the tavern . . . 109 

xiii. the canal boatman 113 

xiv. a maryland maiden 118 

Fredericksburg 

xv. the little rebel 125 

xvi. the colored cooper 143 

xvii. a slave woman's troubles 150 



viii Contents 

Gettysburg 

XVIII. THE carriage-maker's BOY 

XIX. the farmer's son 

XX. THE SCHOOL TEACHER . 

XXI. THE COLORED FARM HAND 

XXII. THE COLORED SERVANTMAID 

XXIII. THE BANK CLERK . 



159 

166 
176 

183 

187 
192 



The Siege of Vicksburg 

xxiv. the merchant's son 197 

xxv. the soldier's wife 202 

xxvi. the fighting slave 217 

xxvii. the cave dweller 224 

xxviii. the captain of the junior volunteers . 232 

Chickamauga 
xxix. the farm lad 239 

XXX. THE soldier's SON 247 

xxxi. a boy on a plantation 251 

xxxii. the runaway slave 255 

xxxiii. the paroled soldier 264 

Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

XXXIV. THE girl ON THE MOUNTAIN . . . .270 

XXXV. THE CABINET-MAKER'S DAUGHTER . . .277 

XXXVI. A TENNESSEE BOY 281 

XXXVII. THE MULATTO GIRL 289 

XXXVIII. THE invalid's WIFE 297 



Contents 



IX 



The Wilderness 

XXXIX. THE MINER'S SON 305 

XL. A YOUTH ON A FARM 312 

Cold Harbor 

xli. the trucker's lad 31g 

xlii. a rustic slave woman 323 

xliii. a man from the ranks 33o 

XLIV. THE SLAVE BOY 33g 

XLV. THE SUTLER'S LASS 34O 

Atlanta 
xlvi. the color bearer 35o 

XLVII. THE WIFE OF AN ARMY COOK . . . .354 

XLVIII. THE PLANTER 37q 

XLIX. THE machinist's DAUGHTER . . . .375 

Cedar Creek 

L. A GIRL in the SHENANDOAH VALLEY . . 382 

LI. THE COLORED WOMAN AT HEADQUARTERS . 392 

LII. A COUNTRY YOUTH'S ADVENTURES . . .396 

LIII. THE NEGRO VILLAGE GIRL 406 

LIV. THE BLACK FIDDLER 41g 



Illustrations 

THE CAPTURE OF JOHN BROWN .... Frontispiece v' 

THE MOB IN THE TAVERN 28-- 

WATCHING THE BURSTING BOMBS 40 

A RELIC OF THE OLD BATTLE 80 

GENERAL LEE'S BREAKFAST IS INTERRUPTED . .110. 

A NARROW ESCAPE 128. 

COLORED REFUGEES GOING NORTH 144 

WATER FOR THE MARCHING TROOPS 178 

THE RUNAWAY BROILS SOME MEAT 220 

THE SLAVE WIFE JOINS HER HUSBAND . . . .260 
THE SHARPSHOOTER AFTER THE BATTLE . . . .274 

A FRIENDLY OFFICER 292 

THE WOUNDED MAN AND HIS HARDTACK . . . .310 

A HOSPITAL VISITOR 356 

SETTING FIRE TO THE BUILDINGS 388 

THE SPOOK IN THE BARN 418 



Battleground Adventures 



The Storekeeper's Son at Harper's Ferry ^ 

In 1859 Harper's Ferry was one of the nicest towns in the 
United States. The government had an armory here, and 
there were fountains all along the streets, and flowerbeds 
with men tending 'em. No expense was spared to keep 
things tidy and attractive. The surrounding scenery was 
beautiful too, for at the lower end of the town the Poto- 
mac and Shenandoah Rivers met and went on through 
a gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

The ground between the two rivers was rough and hilly, 
and most of the buildings huddled along the streams. 
Down near where the rivers joined was a bridge across the 
Potomac that served for both the highway and the Balti- 
more and Ohio Railroad. A short distance from its town 
end was the depot and a hotel high up on the bank. 

The railroad continued close along the Potomac on a 
trestle, and back of the trestle was a long narrow strip of 
land that the armory buildings occupied. In the armory 

1 This and the other footnotes at the beginning of the chapters give 
a brief account of the circumstances of each interview and afford a 
glimpse of the narrators as I met them and listened to their recollec- 
tions. The "storekeeper's son" told his story as he sat smoking in the 
office of a Harper's Ferry hotel. He was a fleshy man of hardly more 
than middle age who apparently had a habit of loitering there for con- 
templation and to read the new^spaper and discuss with friends the 
affairs of the town and the world. 



2 John Brown's Raid 

yard near the depot stood a small brick fire-engine house. 
The yard gate was close by, and across the street was the 
arsenal. Beyond that, right by the Shenandoah River, was 
a railroad that went down to Winchester. 

That Shenandoah Valley railroad was a very poor one 
with no ballasting. The ties were laid on top of the ground. 
Near their outer edges were fastened wooden four by four 
strips with flat iron rails spiked to 'em. The rails were a 
sort of strap iron two or three inches wide and hardly a half 
inch thick. The spikes would work up and the ends of the 
rails get loose, and the trains had to move very cautiously. 
They did n't go more'n eight or ten miles an hour, and you 
could run and catch the blame things anywhere. We boys 
used to worry the conductors by hollerin' to 'em, "Change 
oxen!" 

There were as many as five thousand people here. 
Nearly fifteen hundred were employed by the government, 
and this was a busy prosperous place, but John Brown put 
a curse on it. The town went down from the time of his 
raid, and the war followed soon afterward and just tore up 
everything. 

Brown came to the vicinity with two of his sons early in 
July, 1859, and rented a farm in a secluded spot a few miles 
from the town over on the mountain north of the Potomac. 
They passed themselves off under the name of Smith and 
made a bluff at prospectin' for minerals. 

I was eight years old then. My father had a drygoods 
and grocery store here, and I've seen him and Brown 
talkin' together in the store. Father even furnished Brown 
a team to haul some of his supplies over to his log house. A 
good many boxes came by railroad for him, and he said 
they contained shovels, picks, and that sort of thing. 



The Storekeeper's Son at Harper's Ferry 3 

Really they were full of weapons and ammunition. Those 
would serve in starting his enterprise, and then, by seizing 
the arsenal here, he could put guns into the hands of a very 
formidable force. He expected to recruit an army from the 
large slave population in the region, and he thought numer- 
ous whites would also flock to his aid. 

Brown's entire force, when he set forth on his raid on the 
evening of Sunday, October 16th, consisted of twenty-two 
men. Six of them were members of his family or connected 
with it by marriage, and five were colored men. Three of 
the raiders remained on the north side of the Potomac. 
The rest took possession of the armory and arsenal and 
gathered up several prominent slaveholders whom they put 
in the government fire-engine house with guards over 'em. 
You see it was a part of Brown's scheme to capture such 
men and only release 'em on condition that they set free 
their slaves. 

Every working day the armory bell rang twice each 
morning. There was a first bell which was a sort of warning 
to the men to get ijp and eat breakfast. It rang somewhere 
about half-past five, I reckon. There was a second bell 
along toward seven, and then the men were supposed to 
hustle into the armory and begin work. On Monday of the 
raid the old bell-ringer. Tommy Darr, came to the armory 
at the usual time, and the raiders made him a prisoner. So 
the bell did n't ring. By and by the workmen stirred out to 
see what the trouble was, but Brown had fellers at the ar- 
mory gates, and they picked the men up and held 'em with 
the other prisoners. 

Soon after I got out of bed I heard shots, and came out on 
our front porch. Our house was n't very far from the arm- 
ory gates, and I could see something of what was going on. 



4 John Brown's Raid 

One man had been killed during the night. He was a free 
negro who bunked at the Baltimore and Ohio depot and 
took the luggage back and forth between that depot and 
the one of the Shenandoah Railroad. The second man the 
raiders killed was my father. He walked down street from 
the store to the corner, and a feller who had scooched in 
behind the arsenal wall shot him. Father was a big power- 
ful raw-boned Irishman, and he could have whipped all the 
men Brown had if they'd been unarmed. After he was shot 
he walked back up the hill pretty near home. Then his 
strength failed, and some of the townspeople brought him 
into the house. He died two hours later. 

The third man shot by the raiders was Farmer Turner. 
I seen a black feller do the shootin'. He 'd got into what we 
called the stock-house where the government rifles were 
packed. Turner had brought his gun. He was on horse- 
back, and he rode down too far. Jake Bagent was up the 
street in a silversmith's shop, and pretty soon after Turner 
was killed Jake saw the black feller at the arsenal peeking 
around the corner. So Jake poked his gun out of the door 
and whacked it into him. Like every one else, Jake had 
only an old gun that was made for hunting rabbits and 
other small game, but he had loaded it with a six-inch 
spike. The spike hit the negro in the neck. It made an 
awful wound, and he rolled right out into the road, and 
there he lay till evening. 

The citizens were now shooting all around, and nobody 
run out on the streets any more. They did n't know what 
they were up against, for they did n't know how many 
raiders there were or their object. Everybody had been 
livin' quiet and peaceful, and why men should come in 
here at midnight shooting people down was a mystery. I 



The Storekeeper's Son at Harper's Ferry 5 

heard men talking about it, and they called it an insur- 
rection. 

One of the townsmen who got mixed up in the affair was 
Daddy Molloy. He was a character — a shiftless, but 
good-natured feller who was never sober when he could get 
the booze; and yet, when he first came here, you would n't 
find a nicer-lookin' young man in a thousand miles. He 
claimed some girl went back on him. After that his head 
was n't right. 

Daddy wore all sorts of cast-off clothing. If a man three 
times his size was to say to him: "Here's an old coat of 
mine. Do you want it?" he was sure to accept it. 

He did odd jobs at a boarding-house for his food and 
lodging. I s'pose the lady there kept him because she 
pitied him. Often you'd find him going around and clean- 
ing up the bar-rooms for a drink. He'd do anything to get 
liquor. Sometimes, when he saw a stranger in town, he 'd 
say to one of his friends, "I'll fall down and commence 
chawin' on the stones, and you tell that man I '11 get well 
right off if I have a good drink of whiskey." 

So Daddy falls down, and there he lies pufRng away with 
the white foam coming from his mouth. The stranger 
looks on very much concerned and says to Daddy's friend : 
"Do you know that feller? What's the matter with him?" 

"Well," the friend says, "he has spells like that once in a 
while." 

"Ain't there anything can be done for him?" the 
stranger says. 

"Yes," the friend answers, "a drink of whiskey would 
fix him all right." 

" Go get him a pint," the stranger says. 

The whiskey is put in Daddy's hands, and he drinks it. 



6 John Brown's Raid 

"Ah!" he says, "if I'd had that before I would n't have 
had a fit." 

But sometimes the friend Daddy asked to help him in 
this little game went back on him, and would say to the 
stranger, "That's just Daddy Molloy, and he's playin' 
off." 

Then old Daddy would get up and give the friend 
thunder. 

On the morning that the town learned something was 
wrong at the armory, Daddy went to investigate, and no 
sooner did he enter the gate than a man with a gun told 
him he was arrested. 

"What have I done that you should arrest me?" 
Daddy says. 

"Ask no questions," the feller says. "You go right along 
into that engine house." 

"But I want to know what the charge is against me," 
Daddy told him. 

"Bounce him in," the raider said, and he had one of his 
comrades shove Daddy into the engine house. 

Brown had a good bunch of other prisoners in there, and 
Daddy asked old Mr. Graham, who was sitting near the 
door, what he was there for. He did n't get any satisfac- 
tion. Graham was a crusty old feller, and Daddy said 
afterward, "I thought he was goin' to bite my head off." 
But most of the men were not so close-mouthed. Some 
said: "There's goin' to be hell here. The citizens will just 
set fire to this building and burn old Brown and all the rest 
of us." 

Daddy looked around to see if there was some chance to 
escape and concluded he might be able to get out through 
the cupola. There were two fire-engines in the building — 



The Storekeeper's Son at Harper's Ferry 7 

the kind that had handles along each side for the men to 
take hold of and pump the water. Daddy climbed onto 
one of 'em and reached up to the edge of the cupola. He 
was very strong in his arms, and he said to himself, 
" Where I can reach I can pull myself up." And up he 
went. 

Some cross timbers gave him a resting-place, and after 
peeking all around he crawled out on the slate roof, slid 
down to the grass behind the building, and scrambled over 
the wall around the armory grounds. In the upper stories 
of the near houses were men on the watch, and they began 
firing, for Daddy was dressed so rough they thought he was 
one of Brown's men. ''You ought to have heard those 
balls spattering against the brick wall," he said afterward. 

Yes, everybody was shooting at old Daddy, and he ran 
up the street making for the boarding-house where he was 
the porter; "and if I had n't run zigzag they'd have got 
me," he declared. 

He used to show an old gray coat that had ten or twelve 
bullet holes in it, and he claimed those were made during 
that flight, but I think he may have punched some of 'em 
himself. 

Daddy was n't bom to be killed. Every train on the rail- 
roads here hit and knocked him over at one time or an- 
other; and all the bones in his body had been broken. Once 
a projecting iron on a car ketched him under the jaw and 
dragged him across the bridge, and yet he survived. At 
last, however, he got the smallpox, and he went off all alone 
to an old canal boat and died there; but he'd have got well 
if he'd been tended to and given any nourishment. 

A number of the raiders were killed that Monday while 
trying to escape by wading across the Shenandoah. 



8 John Brown's Raid 

Others were killed in the town, or captured, and the few 
that were left retreated to the engine house. Several com- 
panies of militia had come from neighboring places to put 
down the insurrection, and if it had n't been that Brown 
had his prisoners in the engine house with him they'd have 
blown the whole thing up. 

Toward evening, after they had the raiders penned up, 
I went out a little bit. Down at the corner the body of the 
darky still lay in the road, and old Mrs. Stephenson's sow 
was just diving into the big hole in his neck. The hogs ran 
loose here then. They were the Harper's Ferry street scav- 
engers. The doctors used to argue that it was better to let 
'em run out because by picking up the refuse that might 
otherwise be neglected they kept down sickness. It's only 
of late years that we've made the owners keep 'em up. 
We 'd vote on the question once in a while at town-meeting 
— hog in and hog out — same as now we vote wet or dry, 
whiskey or no whiskey. People would get so hot on the 
subject that we had several knockdowns on account of it. 
But in the end the hogs lost. The families that did n't keep 
hogs had come to be in the majority — that's about the 
amount of it. 

Well, no decided push was made to end the insurrection 
until a company of United States Marines came from 
Washington under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee. 
They arrived early Tuesday morning, and while they were 
getting ready for business some of the militia decided to be 
doin' something. One of 'em by the name of Murphy had 
a few drinks on, and he said he'd go and storm that engine 
house. So he went into the armory yard with a couple of 
his comrades follerin' along behind and tellin' him he'd 
better look out. He had n't gone far when a bullet touched 



The Storekeeper's Son at Harper's Ferry 9 

him in the jaw. That settled Murphy. He'd got stung, 
and he retreated. 

Then the marines tackled the job, and they soon got 
possession of the engine house, and took Brown and his 
men prisoners. They put 'em on board a train that carried 
'em to the jail in Charlestown a few miles south of here. 
After the marines had disposed of their prisoners they got 
on a train themselves, and back they went to Washington. 

Of the twenty-two raiders ten were killed, five escaped, 
and seven were captured, tried and hung. Five of the 
townspeople were killed and eight wounded. 



n 

The Prisoner^ 

My father had a farm two miles west of the town. He 
owned quite a trac' of land there — seven or eight hundred 
acres — and was one of the leading men of the county. I 
suppose he was worth nearly a hundred thousand dollars. 
That seemed like great wealth then, but it would n't carry 
ten yards in Wall Street now. 

Harper's Ferry was a dandy town in those days. Oh! it 
was beautiful, and the government had put up the finest 
kind of shops for gun-makin'. Dude fellers worked there, 
and they could earn as high as four or five dollars a day at 
piece work. They'd go in wearin' their best clothes and 
shift to their work clothes in a special room. At the end of 
the day they washed up and changed their clothes, and 
when they came out you'd think they were just comin' out 
of church. 

On that Sunday night in the autumn of 1859 when 
Brown captured the armory I went down to a protracted 
meetin' at the Harper's Ferry Methodist Church. I was 
seventeen years old. Me 'n' another young feller rode down 

1 While my host talked we sat in one of the rooms of the farmhouse 
that had been his father's at the time of the historic raid. The dwelling 
was rather forlornly neglected in its aspect, and we were in a wing that 
had been the slave quarters. Walls and ceiling and everything in the 
room were darkened with an appalling accumulation of smoke and 
grime. The day was rainy, and my companion wore rubber boots. He 
was tall and thin, and, though no longer young, was still dark-haired 
and keen-eyed. 



The Prisoner 11 

on horseback. It was a big thing hyar then to have a pro- 
tracted meetin'. There 'd be a meetin' every evenin' for 
two or three weeks except Saturday. That evenin' we'd 
rest up, and we'd have an extra hot time on Sunday night. 
People would come from all directions, there 'd be several 
preachers, and the church would be crowded. 

Up in front under the pulpit was a long wooden bench, 
and the mourners knelt on either side of it tryin' to git re- 
ligion. Whether people were religious or not they had a 
curiosity to go and see the mourners; and the ministers 
used to say, "It'll break up the meetin' if somebody don't 
come to the mourners' bench." 

Those that went up there were usually all young people 
from twelve to twenty years old, and perhaps there 'd be a 
dozen or more down on their knees at the same time 
shoutin' and prayin'; "0 Lord, have mercy on me! God, 
help me!" 

While they went on that way the ministers and elders 
talked among 'em and prayed over 'em. A good many of 
*em were crjdn', and a heap of the congregation would be 
cryin', too. There was singin' goin' on all the time, and the 
leaders would whoop and holler over the mourners, only 
stoppin' occasionally to ask 'em, "Now do you think 
you've given up to the Lord?" 

When one of 'em said, "Yes," he'd jump up and go to 
singin'. 

We had a lively time that Sunday evenin' I was speakin' 
of, and it was about twelve o'clock when us two fellers 
got on our horses to ride home. I remember it was a 
dark night and cool. On the way we overtook half a 
dozen men walkin', and they had blankets thro wed 
around 'em. I found out later that they were some of 



12 John Brown's Raid 

Brown's raiders and that they wore the blankets to hide 
their weapons. 

After I got home I went to bed and to sleep, but I had n't 
been sleepin' long when I heard a rappin' ag'in' the door 
that opened from the yard into the room where Father and 
Mother slept. I thought some tramp was there and I ex- 
pected to hear him ask if he could sleep in the barn. 

"What do you want?" Father said. 

Then a man outside said, "Git up and open the door"; 
and after some more talkin' back and forth the door was 
busted right open with a rail, and the man walked in. 

I had a long old country shotgun that I kep' loaded, and 
I thought I 'd take it down there and order the feller out. 
Of course, I was some scared, but you 'd want to go and see 
what was goin' on if some one had broken into your 
daddy's room, would n't you? 

My aunt and sister had waked up, and they put their 
heads out of an upstairs window and hollered, "Murder!" 
But they got back out of the way quick when a colored man 
in the yard said he'd blow their heads off if they did n't 
shut that window. 

I slep' up at the head of some steps that went down from 
the second story right into Father's room, and I had got 
my gun ready when my aunt peeked down the steps. 

"For gracious sake! don't take that gun down there," 
she said. "The man in your father's room is all armed. 
He's got revolvers in his belt, and he's got a gun besides. 
He'll just think you're goin' to kill him, and he'll kill you." 

So I put back my gun and went along without it. I made 
a pretty heavy noise goin' down the steps, and the man 
turned to look and drawed his gun on me — click, click! 
"Come on," he said, and I came. 



The Prisoner 13 

A white man and a big yeller colored feller were there, 
and they had pine torches, and the sparks flew all over the 
floor. I stamped some of the sparks out my with foot. 

"What you goin' to do?" I asked. 

"My name is Stevens," the white man said, "and I'm 
under the orders of Captain John Brown. We're goin' to 
free all the slaves." 

I talked back to him right smart, and I was a little sassy, 
for I was on my own ground. 

"Why don't you hush. Tommy?" Mother said. 

"Captain Brown has taken the government works at 
Harper's Ferry," Stevens told us. 

"That wasn't much to do," I said. "They only have 
one watchman there." 

"You shut your mouth or I'll blow your brains out," he 
said. 

Then the colored feller collared me and drawed a revol- 
ver and held it ag'in' my breast. That made me kind of 
nervous. I could n't do nothin', and I said to myself, 
"You've got me now." 

They took Father and me out to the road where four 
more of their men were and a four-horse farm wagon and a 
two-horse carriage. They'd been up the road and got 
Colonel Washington, one of the leading planters of the re- 
gion, and were takin' him to Harper's Ferry in his own car- 
riage driven by one of his slaves. The wagon was his, too, 
and there were a number of his slaves standin' up in it. 

Our slaves lived in a wing of our house. Stevens had 'em 
roused up, and he selected half a dozen and told 'em he was 
goin' to set 'em free, and that they must come along with 
him in the wagon. They kep' very quiet and it did n't 
seem like they wanted to go. 



14 John Brown's Raid 

The raiders were careful not to take their torchlights out 
to the road, and the neighbors never saw or heard a thing. 
My mother and sister and aunt came out to the fence, and 
they were very uneasy. Father and I had to git into the 
wagon with the slaves. We stood near the front. The pro- 
cession started with Colonel Washington in his carriage 
goin' ahead. A colored man drove our horses. He sat on 
the left wheel horse and did the guidin' with a single line. 
That's the way we drive our work teams hyar. 

When we got to Harper's Ferry everything was quiet as 
a mouse. " What's the matter? " Father said. "Is every 
one in the town killed?" 

"Oh, no!" I said, "I reckon not." 

We drove in the armory yard to the engine house and 
got out. Then Stevens delivered us over to an old man who 
was there with a gun, and said, " This is Captain John 
Brown." 

"Yes, I'm Osawatomie Brown of Kansas," Brown said. 

He was a tolerable large man, rough, and coarse-featured, 
and a little overbearing and rude in his conversation. He 
gave each of our colored men a spear. I believe he called it 
a pike. It had a han'le like a pitchfork, and on one end 
was an Iron concern the shape of a butcher knife exactly, 
but sharpened on both edges. Brown had any quantity of 
'em. "You take these pikes," he said to our slaves, "and 
don't let the prisoners git off the pavement in front of the 
engine house." 

But the slaves did n't 'mount to nothin' as a help to 
Brown. When his back was turned they'd set down their 
spears, but if they see old John Brown comin' they'd pick 
'em up and tend to business. 

By and by it got to be time to ring the armory bell, 



The Prisoner 15 

and the bell-ringer come right on in. Stevens checked him, 
and said, "Where you goin'?" 

"I'm goin' to ring that bell," the man said, and started 
to walk along. 

But Stevens give him a gouge with his gun. The gun 
was a tamal heavy one, and it broke some of the old man's 
ribs, and he fell. Later the citizens were allowed to carry 
him away. 

After it was daylight the townspeople began to come to 
see what was the matter at the armory, and as soon as they 
got opposite the yard gate one of Brown's men would say, 
" Come in hyar," and he 'd run 'em right in so they could n't 
go back to tell the news. 

Presently Brown had one of his men go and order the 
hotel landlord to send over breakfast for the raiders and 
their prisoners — eighty-five in all, I think. He did n't pay 
then or afterward, and the landlord later got an attach- 
ment on Brown's horse and wagon and sold 'em for the bill. 

A colored servant brought the food. There was butter 
and rolls and coffee. Some of the prisoners was so scared 
they could n't eat. Father was a little afraid there might be 
poison in the food, and I said to one of our darkies, "Bill, 
are you goin' to eat this?" 

"Yes, sir, I'm goin' to try it," he answered. 

"Well," I said, "go ahead and I'll see what it does to 
you." 

It did n't seem to have any bad effect, and then I ate, 
and I did n't have nothin' more to eat till after Brown's 
Fort, the fire-engine house, was captured. 

Brown stood around or walked backwards and forwards 
waiting for reinforcements. That was where he got fooled, 
you know. The feller who fooled him was one of his own 



16 John Brown's Raid 

men by the name of Cook. Cook come hyar peddhn' maps, 
and he got acquainted with an old widow lady, Mrs. Mc- 
Gregor. She got him a job of tendin' a lock on the canal. 
The old lady had a niece named Jane Kennedy who lived a 
few miles over in Maryland, and this niece come visitin' her 
Aunt McGregor. Cook got to sparkin' her, and by and by 
they married. Later he taught m the Harper's Ferry public 
schools. 

He claimed he had gone around notifyin' the slaves what 
Brown intended to do, and he made Brown believe that all 
the darkies in the whole country would rush right in hyar 
ready to fight for their freedom under Brown's command. 
But Cook had n't done as much notifyin' as he pretended 
he had, and the darkies would have been too skeery, any- 
way. There were too many guns in the road. They are not 
a fightin' race, and those of 'em who became soldiers in the 
war only fought well when they had the advantage. Let 
the enemy bung it into 'em and kill a few, and the others 
scattered and run. So Brown never had much use for the 
fourteen hundred spears that he had had made to arm the 
colored recruits he expected. 

We began to hear shootin' soon after breakfast, and by 
nine or ten o'clock they were crackin' away fast. The citizens 
got up in the houses and fired, and they shot down from 
the hills. If any of the men at the engine house so much 
as peeped around a corner the citizens let loose at 'em. 

After a while Brown sent Stevens on some errand to the 
hotel, and had him take along a prisoner so he would n't be 
fired on. They had nearly reached the hotel when a colored 
boy at the engine house pointed to an upper window in the 
tavern not far from the bridge and said, "Look, look! there 
are two men up there and they're goin' to shoot." 



The Prisoner 17 

That same instant one of the men punched a pane of 
glass out, and pop went his gim. A raider by the name of 
Coppic had joined the colored boy, and he remarked, 
"They've shot Stevens." 

"I'm sorry for that," Brown said. "Is he dead?" 

"No," Coppic answered, "he's fallen down, but he's 
movin' yet. Now he's got up on one knee. His prisoner 
has walked right on — glad to git away, I guess." 

"Look!" the boy exclaimed, "they're goin' to shoot 
again." 

They fired, and Stevens did n't git up that time. He lay 
there near half an hour, and then Miss Foulke, the hotel 
landlord's sister, who was a very kind-hearted woman, got 
some men to take him up and put him in bed at the hotel. 
She arranged, too, for a heavy guard of militia, or the citi- 
zens would have gone right in there and killed him. 
He was quite a loss to the raiders, for, next to Brown, he 
was the ablest man in the bunch. But he was a mean devil 
and had been rough to the prisoners. Yes, he was a bad 
one. 

For a while we took refuge in a watchhouse that was 
joined on to the engine house, but it had a lot of windows, 
and the balls came through the glass. Then Brown selected 
fifteen or twenty of the prisoners and took 'em into the 
engine house. He left the balance to do as they pleased, 
and pretty soon he said, "Listen at 'em gettin' out." They 
climbed through a back window and skedaddled. 

We were jammed in the engine house pretty close. There 
were too many for the space. A dog that belonged to 
Brown was with us. He was a big black dog with a white 
stripe down his face, and he had white feet. The bullets 
was flyin' around there hot, and the raiders fastened the 



18 John Brown's Raid 

large double door with ropes so it would only open a little 
— just enough to shoot through. 

Brown had one of our colored men take a pick and dig 
three or four portholes through the walls. As the darky was 
gettin' out the last brick a bullet hit it and knocked it in 
and keeled him over. 

Early in the afternoon Father was lookin' out, and he 
says: "There's Colonel Beckham walkin' on the railroad 
trustle. I wonder what he's doin' that for." 

Beckham was the station-agent and the mayor of the 
town. Where he was walkin' there was a long platform 
extendin' from the depot up along the Potomac. That plat- 
form was the great promenade of the townspeople. Pretty 
soon Beckham got behind the water-tank and took a peek 
around the end. Brown had ordered his men not to fire at 
any one who was unarmed, but Beckham's peeking made 
Coppic, who was watching, think he was goin' to shoot. So 
Coppic fired. 

"Did you git him?" Brown asked. 

"No," Coppic said, "but if he peeks again I'll make sure 
of him by letting my bullet nip a corner of the tank." 

Beckham peeked, and Coppic fired, and Beckham fell 
right out from behind the tank and lay still. 

The militia could easily have taken the engine house, 
for there were only five raiders inside, but they did n't 
have the nerve to storm it. Besides, Brown had the advan- 
tage of 'em in holding us prisoners. We were kep' for to 
protect his men. He knew the besiegers would be careful 
about shootin' and assaultin' lest they hurt their friends. 

Late in the evenin' Watson Brown was lookin' out of the 
door, and sightin' his gun at a feller just opposite. That 
feller had seen Watson and was gittin' ready to take a shot. 



The Prisoner 19 

too, and Watson did n't shoot quick enough. A bullet hit 
him, and he jumped back. He had his finger on the trigger 
of his gun, and in jumping he gave the gun a jerk that 
made it go off. He was hit in the stomach, and he suffered 
awfully. 

After Watson was shot the raiders barred the door and 
pushed one of the fire-engines up ag'in' it, and there we 
stayed quiet as a lamb all night listenin' to the men jab- 
berin' outside of the gate and to the shootin' that was done 
off and on to prevent Brown from attemptin' to git out. I 
thought that was the longest night ever I spent. We didn't 
have any light in there, so it was dark as a dungeon, and 
we just lay on the brick floor, or set down and leaned up 
ag'in' the wall and nodded. Some of the colored fellers 
were snorin' away, but the rest of us could n't sleep. 

Young Brown lay in a corner. "Oh kill me and put me 
out of this sufferin'!" he'd beg his father. 

But old Brown would tell him to quit his noise, and 
"die like a man." 

Toward momin' old Brown, who was sittin' near the 
door, called to his son and got no answer. "I guess he's 
dead," the old man said. 

The marines were on hand in the morning, and an officer 
came to the engine house door. Brown opened it wide 
enough to talk to him. The officer said Brown might as 
well surrender. But Brown said, "I ain't a-goin' to do it." 

"I've got sixty men out hyar, and I'll make you do it," 
the officer told him. 

"All right," Brown said, and shut the door. 

Then the officer ordered his men to take sledges and 
batter the door down. That did n't succeed, and they got a 
heavy ladder and rammed it ag'in' the door. They rammed 



20 John Brown's Raid 

a second time, and some of the raiders fired out of the port- 
holes and killed one of the marines and wounded another. 
But they rammed again and busted the door wide enough 
open so a man could squeeze through it. While this was 
goin' on we prisoners set there scared and shiverin'. 

Lieutenant Green got inside first, and Brown was about 
to shoot him when the officer cut at the old man with his 
saber, and by havin' the science he knocked the gun up so 
it went off above him. His next stroke knocked Brown 
pretty senseless, and if Green had been a little nearer he'd 
have taken Brown's head off. That sweeping stroke just 
grazed my father and cut his hat-band. Green apologized 
afterward and wanted to git him a new hat, but Father 
would n't hear to such a thing. 

Coppic and the other raiders threw down their guns and 
surrendered, except one colored feller. This darky jumped 
up and said, "I'm one of the citizen prisoners." 

" No you ain't," the officer said, and took him along with 
the others. 

Brown could n't walk, and the marines carried him out 
and laid him on the grass. They formed a circle around 
him with their bayonets ready so he could n't be harmed. 
"Stand back, men," they'd say to the crowd. 

I went into a store where Father dealt and got some 
crackers and cheese to eat, and I stayed in the town till 
night. The people liked to have talked me to death. 
"Hyar, tell us how you was arrested and all about it," 
they'd say. They kep' at me and would hardly let me 
away. 

I got home a little befo' sundown, and I tell you I was 
sleepy, for I had n't slep' none to speak of for two nights. 
My father had returned earlier, so Mother and the rest of 



The Prisoner 21 

the family knew we were safe, and they were all contented 
when I arrived. 

One of our colored men was caught at the armory with a 
gun and was taken to Charlestown jail. He got the typhoid 
fever in the jail and died there. 

Us young fellers would ride to Charlestown of a Sunday 
to see the prisoners. The jailer let a squad of four or five of 
us go in at a time, and he'd say: "Don't make 'em mad. 
Don't say anything mean to 'em." 

Brown was very quiet and never said much more than: 
"How do you do. Nice day," or something of that sort. 

I saw Stevens, and I remarked, "S'pose you know me." 

"No, indeed, no, indeed!" he replied. 

"You broke in our house," I said, "and took me and 
Father prisoners." 

"You're just as much mistaken as if you'd lost your 
hat," he said. 

He was gritty, and, from all I saw, I can say that Brown 
and his men were none of 'em cowardly. 



Ill 

The Watchman on the Bridge ^ 

I WAS twenty-si ven years old when Brown made his raid, 
and I was a watchman on the bridge across the Potomac. 
She was a covered wooden bridge, and the raih*oad trains 
wint through her, besides teams and people on foot. There 
were two of us watchmen. My partner would be on duty 
for twelve hours, and then I'd take my turn for twelve 
hours. I wint on at midnight and stayed on till noon. We 
had to tind to a switch, and at night I had to collect the 
tolls. A regular collector took the tolls in the daytime. 

Brown had rinted a farm on the Maryland side of the 
Potomac. I knew him as Captain John Smith, and he was 
as nice a man as you'd want to meet. He bought a horse 
and a little wagon, and I saw him daily comparatively 
speakin'. He'd come to the town and go back wid a box 
that had been shipped to him from the North. We found 
out afterward that those boxes had revolvers and Sharps's 
rifles and such things in 'em. Brown 'peared to be very 
fri'ndly wid me, and he'd be shakin' hands and havin' a few 
words to say. He claimed he'd found a vein of silver in the 
mountains. 

I lived at the village of Sandy Hook about a mile down 
on the north side of the Potomac. On the October Sunday 

' As I saw him he was a very hearty, friendly old Irishman of alert 
mind and decided opinions. We spent an evening together in the little 
sitting-room of his home a short distance from Harper's Ferry. 



The Watchman on the Bridge 23 

night that the raid began I got up at the usual time, put on 
me overcoat, for the air was right cool, and started for work. 
I carried a lantern, though there were stars in the sky, so 
the night was n't disperate dark. Me watch showed it was 
ten minutes past twelve o'clock when I reached the bridge. 
We had three or four oil lamps in the bridge to guide people 
across, and I seen that the lights was out, and it sthruck me 
there was something wrong. 

The watch-box was at the other end of the bridge, and 
I 'd walked three fourths of the way across when I saw two 
men wid blankets around their shoulders. They were 
standin' at a place where the bridge widened out, and 
where there was a seat at one side wid a banister at each 
end. One of the men stepped back out of the way, but the 
other stood there and said, "Halt!" 

I did n't know no more what "Halt" meant than a hog 
does about a holiday, and I kep' movin' on. Then he said, 
"Halt!" again, but I wint on till I got close. 

I was n't expectin' to have no trouble, for I was p'ace- 
able, and I was unarmed. I niver carried a revolver. If I 
was attacked I 'd rather get a black eye than shoot a man. 
I did n't believe in a revolver. I don't believe in 'em yet, 
and I don't believe in war. I seen enough of war and 
shootin'. 

The man had one of thim pikes that Brown got to arm 
the nagurs, and a very wicked lookin' weapon it was. He 
gave me a jab in the side wid the handle, and I wint very 
near thro win' up. I come to a little, and I said: "What's 
wrong? I'm the watchman on this bridge. What's the 
matter?" 

"We'll watch the bridge to-night," he said. 

Just then I noticed six or eight of thim pikes leanin' 



24 John Brown's Raid 

ag'in' the seat there, and the sight of thim made me 
frantic. 

"Come wid me," the man said, but he did n't say where 
he was goin' to bring me. He reached down his left hand 
and got hold of the handle of me lantern. "Come," he 
says. 

About that time I up wid me fist and hit him back of the 
jaw under his ear and knocked him ag'in' the seat. The 
lantern dropped and was smashed, and the light wint out. 
I run, and don't you forget it. Dark as it was in that bridge 
I wint at the rate of twelve miles an hour, no doubt. The 
other man shot at me when I passed him, and I lost me hat. 

Near the end of the bridge was a hotel, and the dure was 
always open for me. You see I often used to go there, just 
before the eastbound night express arrived, and warn 'em, 
so whoever wanted to go on the train could get ready. I 
run to the hotel and found the clerk and a man named 
Horsey in the office. This Horsey was goin' on the express. 
I told 'em about the men on the bridge, and Horsey said: 
"They're some of the town people who want to test your 
pluck. They're jokin' you." 

That made me kind of angry, but I soon cooled off, and 
then I wint to the depot. A very big, stout colored man 
named Haywood handled the baggage and slept in the of- 
fice there. He was a free nagur and worth some sixteen or 
eighteen thousand dollars. I woke him up. He had a pistol 
wid a knife attached to the end of it, and I borrowed it from 
him and wint to the house where me partner lived. I 
knocked at the dure and called to his wife. She knew me 
voice, and she said, "Is that you, Mr. Higgins?" 

I asked her was her husband at home, and she said, 
"No." 



The Watchman on the Bridge 25 

I did n't want to scare the woman, and I said, "Well, 
I'll see him down town." 

Then I wint right back to the depot, and pretty soon the 
express come. I told the conductor that two men held the 
bridge, and I would n't be responsible if the train wint out 
there. He was a tall, powerful man, and he hollered to the 
baggage-master on the train, "Let me have a lantern." 

As soon as he had the lantern in his hand he told me to go 
wid him. I did n't care about goin', but I wint, for I niver 
was a coward and I did n't like to refuse. It seemed best 
though to keep a little behind him so if a bullet came our 
way he'd get it first. The baggage-master follered. We got 
onto the bridge, and bang wint a gun, but I suppose it was 
just fired in the air as a warnin'. 

"Boys, what's wrong?" the conductor says. 

"The town is taken," was the reply. "Advance no 
further." 

The conductor told 'em who he was, and they said he 
could go on with his train, but he did n't want to risk it. 
We had turned to leave the bridge when the baggage- 
master picked up something and looked at it by the light of 
the lantern. "Pat, here's your hat," he said, "and there's 
a hole in it." 

I put me hand up to me head and found blood in me hair. 
A bullet had just grazed the skin on the top of me head. I 
did n't know I was hit at the time of the shootin' I was that 
bad skeered. It was a close shave. 

When the passengers learned that the train was goin' to 
stay there they got off and filled up the ticket office. Then 
Haywood, the colored man, wint out toward the bridge 
lookin' around, and the men there shot him through the 
body. He walked back and lay down on his couch in the 



26 John Brown's Raid 

depot. A doctor in the town had heard the shootin', and he 
came to see what the trouble was. We had him look at 
Haywood, and he said the wounded man could n't live. 
Oh, poor feller! he suffered awful. 

The train stayed there on the trestle till daylight in the 
morning. Then John Brown himself came and walked with 
the conductor ahead of the train across the bridge, and the 
conductor jumped on and proceeded. 

After I 'd watched the train go I wint to see if there was 
anything more I could do for Haywood. "For God's sake, 
Mr. Higgins, will you go and get me a drink of water? " 
he said. 

There had been a big stone pitcher full of water in the 
waiting-room, but the people from the train had n't left a 
drop in it. So I took the pitcher and wint down to a pump 
in the street and drew the water. As I was goin' back a 
man come out of the bridge eatin' a cracker, and he asked 
me very politely would I let the men on the bridge have 
a drink. I said, "Yes," and wint along wid him. 

He was the one who had shot at me, and I learned that 
his name was Thompson, and that the man I had hit was 
Oliver Brown. They had been reinforced by a chunky little 
mulatto who sat on the bench whittling a stick. I mistook 
the mulatto for a white man at first in the gloom of the 
bridge. 

Brown said, "You're the laddie buck who sthruck me 
here last night, ain't you?" 

I told him I was. 

"Well, you acted very impudent," he said. 

Then Thompson said, "I'm proud that I did n't kill or 
cripple you when you ran and I fired." 

"What does it all mean?" I asked Oliver. 



The Watchman on the Bridge 27 

He said, "It's a darky scrape." 

"Well, Where's the darkies?" I asked. 

"I am one," Oliver said; and Thompson said, "I am 
another"; but the mulatto niver opened his mouth at all. 

Then I said: "For myself, I ain't rich enough to own a 
darky. I work twelve hours a day for a dollar." 

"Yes," Brown said, "I know these slave states are not 
as good as the free states for you working-men. We're 
goin' to free the blacks, and that will help such as you. 
There'll be blood shed, but it 's not our object to hurt any 
one who don't take up arms against us." 

"I'm not very fond of fightin'," says I, "and I'm takin' 
this water over here to the depot to give to a nagur that 
you shot." 

" It was his fault," Brown said. " He ought to have done 
as we told him to do." 

I wint along wid the water. By this time the men in the 
town had begun to come to their work in the armory, and I 
could see a crowd of prisoners down there. The people soon 
became greatly excited over the state of affairs, and rumors 
flew far and wide. My wife got word of the raid, and she 
thought I'd lost an arm or a leg, or maybe was dead. So 
she leaves her four-months-old baby, and off she starts to 
find me. She passed the men on the bridge, and they put 
their hands to their hats very polite. 

After she found me and knew I was all right, then she 
would n't go back alone wid herself. Nothing would do but 
I must go along, too. The baby needed her, so I wint. As 
we crossed the bridge I told Thompson I would be back in a 
few minutes. You see, it was me duty as watchman to look 
after things there. If I did n't the bridge owners might 
discharge me. 



28 John Brown's Raid 

I walked down the road a ways toward Sandy Hook, and 
then I told me wife I must return. She took on cryin' and 
said she was sure I 'd be killed or at least taken prisoner. 

But I had to go. It was now about eight o'clock, and I 
remember the weather was kind of a little misty. As I wint 
along I could see a half dozen or more people comin' down 
the mountain on the Maryland side of the river, which was 
the side I was on, and I took notice some of 'em had guns. 
I waited for 'em at the entrance to the bridge, and I told 
'em how I was obliged to go across, but that if they wint 
they'd be captured. 

Then I left thim, and soon I was back in the office at the 
depot. I was sittin' there, watchin' and condolin' to myself 
what was goin' to be when those fellers across the river 
fired on the men who held the bridge. Oliver and the other 
two run like sheep. But a bullet stopped Oliver, and 
Thompson halted and tried to make a treaty wid the men. 
They would n't make any treaty, and they just tied his 
wrists together in front of him wid strong cord and took 
him to the hotel, where they held him a prisoner. 

The colored man was so panic-stricken that instead of 
goin' to the armory he ran and jumped into the arsenal 
yard. By and by, when he was tryin' to get from the ar- 
senal across the street to the armory gate he was shot in the 
neck and fell dead. I seen men come along afterward and 
take out their knives and cut off a piece of his ear for a relic 
and put it in their pockets. He had no ears left by night. 

In the middle of the morning Stevens was shot. He was 
a fine-lookin' man, and it 'pears to me he was no coward. 
He fell behind the station warehouse. "0 Lord! is there no 
one will take me out of here?" I heard him say. 

I wint to where he was and turned him over, and I saw 




THE MOB IN THE TAVERN 



The Watchman on the Bridge 29 

he had a Colt's revolver in his inside pocket, and I took it. 
While I was stoopin' over him they fired on me from the 
engine house. The bullets sthruck the wall behind me, and 
pieces of the brick flew and hit me head. A lady in a build- 
ing right across from the depot called out of a window, 
"Fall back, fall back!" and I hurried to shelter. 

My goodness! the excitement was terrible. The country 
people were flockin' in from all directions. Men broke into 
the saloons and got drunk, and they wint to the arsenal 
and everybody had plenty of guns. They were firin' cross- 
ways, and it's my opinion they wounded some of thim- 
selves. The wonder is that more were n't hurt. 

In the afternoon the nagur at the depot died, and I wint 
to the hotel and told Beckham, who was the station-agent 
and the mayor of the town. I could see the tears come in 
his eyes he thought so much of that darky. Me 'n' him 
walked back to the depot office and looked at Haywood, 
and then Beckham told me to lock the office and put the 
key in me pocket. We wint along the trestle to the water- 
tank. Says I : " Squire, don't go any further. It ain't safe." 

He leaned over and looked around the end of the tank, 
and while he was lookin' a bullet sthruck him. He took a 
step forward and said, "Oh!" and fell on his face. They'd 
shot him through the heart, and he lay there quiet and 
niver quivered. I stood twinty minutes or so lookin' at the 
poor feller, afeared to get him. Then I returned to the 
depot. 

His death all but crazed the townspeople, and they made 
a rush in at the hotel to get Thompson. The landlord and 
Miss Foulke, his sister, fought hard for Thompson and 
plead and prayed for him. Tables and chairs were upset 
and there was an awful racket. The mob did n't leave the 



30 John Brown's Raid 

hotel till they had the prisoner in their possession. They 
took him up to the depot platform at the entrance to the 
bridge. 

George Chambers had become the actin'-mayor, and he 
wanted me to go get a rope to hang Thompson. In thim 
days I did n't care for Chambers or no man, and I would n't 
go. 

Then Chambers said to Thompson: "I'll tell you what 
will save you. Give us a history of the Abolitionist pro- 
ceedings that led to this insurrection, and we'll spare you." 

But Thompson niver had a word to say. Chambers was a 
blood-thirsty feller, and he took a revolver, put it to 
Thompson's breast, and shot him. I always thought that 
was a cowardly act, and I niver liked Chambers so much 
afterward. They throwed the body over the wall, and it 
fell partly in the water and partly on the land, and during 
the day a good many men came and shot at it. That 
seemed brutal. The carcass laid there nearly all that week. 

After dark some of us wint to get Beckham. Guns were 
still bein' fired, and we did n't like to expose ourselves. 
So I took hold of Beckham's feet and pulled him back a 
little till he was behind the tank. Then we lifted and 
carried him away. 

Finally I wint home to Sandy Hook, and about two 
o'clock that night the marines from Washington got off the 
cars there. They walked the rest of the way to Harper's 
Ferry, and I wint wid 'em. When it was daylight their com- 
mander. Colonel Lee, said to the people: "The first one of 
the citizens that fires a shot will be put under arrest. This 
is government property and we will take care of it." 

After a while an officer pulled out a white handkerchief 
and waved it up and down where it could be seen from the 



The Watchman on the Bridge 31 

engine-house portholes. Then he wint and had a talk wid 
Captain Brown. He stayed not more than ten minutes 
and came back and said: "He will not surrender. It's 
old Osawatomie Brown." 

So they got a long, heavy ladder, and as many of the 
marines took hold of it as could, and they ran and rammed 
it ag'in' the big iron dure. That made an awful noise. At 
the third charge the dure wint in, and soon the raiders were 
all captured. They'd have been lynched by the citizens, 
and there 'd niver have been a bit of a trial if the troops 
had n't been here to protect 'em. 

After Brown was hung I helped put his remains on the 
express at our depot for his wife to take North, and I 
couldn't help thinkin' what a mistake he'd made. He 
seemed a sinsible man in most respects, but he was a 
maniac on this question of slavery. The effect of the raid 
was just the opposite of what he hoped, even on the slaves. 
He had killed a nagur here the first thing, and that shocked 
thim. You couldn't get one of 'em out after dark till 
weeks and months had gone by, they were so skeered. 

Well, the Monday of John Brown's Raid bate anything 
I iver seen, and I seen desperate times during the war — 
bridges burnt and government buildings a-fire — but niver 
no such excitement as that day. It was a dreadful time. 



IV 

The Free Jakes ' 

My folks lived eight miles south of Harper's Ferry at 
Charlestown. I was a boy comin' up fourteen or fifteen 
years old at the time of the Brown Raid. The first I knew 
of it two men playin' a drum and a fife marched up the 
street. Then the bell at the courthouse rang, and the 
people all gathered there to learn the cause of the unusual 
summons. Half a dozen prominent men spoke. They said 
something was wrong at Harper's Ferry, and that an 
armed body had taken possession of the armory. 

Some of us boys had organized a sort of juvenile militia 
company. We had wooden guns and called ourselves Free 
Jakes. But there was no nonsense about the way we 
drilled, and I 've never forgotten the manual. I could drill a 
company now right up to the scratch. There was an old 
Revolutionary cannon in the place — a smooth-bore six- 
pounder. Most of the time it just set around on a vacant 
lot anywhere, but the boys and young men always used to 
fire it on Christmas Day. That was the biggest time of the 
year with us. We celebrated Christmas the same as the 
Fourth of July was celebrated up North. We'd start in the 
morning along about daylight and fire the cannon at every 

1 Most of the Free Jakes are no more. The survivor who related their 
history was at the time of this interview a hotel landlord at Harper's 
Ferry — a thin, active man, getting gray. Sometimes, while he talked, 
he was behind the ofiice counter, but in his more leisurely intervals he 
occupied one of the row of chairs along the opposite wall. 



The Free Jakes 33 

comer. The concussions would break all the windows in 
Charlestown, but no one ever complained. We made a fuse 
by soaking brown paper in salt petre, and when it was dried 
we tied it in a loose little roll on the end of a three-foot 
stick to use in touching off our cannon. The cannon kicked 
like the Old Harry and at every discharge jumped back 
eight or ten feet. 

The jailer of our prison told us Free Jakes to get our can- 
non ready to go to Harper's Ferry. We needed some am- 
munition, and we got a number of oyster cans that would 
hold 'bout a pint and were just the right size for the muzzle 
of our gun, and we filled 'em with powder. Then we picked 
little holes in the bottom with a nail and a rock so the 
powder would ignite. Another set of cans we filled with 
clippings from horseshoes. The clippings were square slugs 
as big as large chestnuts and made fine missiles. We took 
a stick and rammed one of each of the cans home in the 
gun and filled up the touchhole with powder. After that we 
put ropes to the cannon and started along the pike. I guess 
fifty or sixty boys had hold of the ropes. Anyway there was 
a dickens of a bunch of us. We had two men for wheel- 
horses. They were big and strong, and we kept them full 
enough of whiskey to encourage them to work well. We 
had to stop now and then to rest, and it took us quite a 
while to travel the hilly eight-mile road. 

As we neared the town we began to move very quietly, 
feelin' our way, and not knowin' what we had to contend 
with. It was afternoon when we got here. Everything was 
in a bustle, and we could see people lookin' down from the 
high ground all around. We planted our cannon up on 
Camp Hill to bear on the bridge across the Potomac. That 
bridge was a mile away, mind you, but we expected to 



34 John Brown's Raid 

keep out any enemy that attempted to cross it; and I 
suppose, if we had actually fired our cannon, the slugs in 
the oyster can would have been scattered all over the 
world. 

But there seemed to be no immediate occasion for artil- 
lery, and we left our cannon, and each boy knocked around 
to suit himself and see what he could see. Our movements 
were cautious, however, for we did n't know when we 
might run into an ambuscade, and we were particularly 
careful not to go too near the engine house because Brown's 
men had made portholes in it through which they could 
sight and pop at us. 

We all had friends livin' here who gave us something to 
eat, and quite a number of the Free Jakes stayed overnight. 
I know I did. I was at the home of a cousin of mine where 
a bunch of us fellows slept together on the floor. 

The next morning the raiders were captured, and I saw 
Brown as they put him on the train to take him to the 
Charlestown Jail. He appeared to me like a very rough- 
lookin' old farmer. 

Late in the day it was reported that a big crowd was 
comin' from the North somewheres, to rescue the raiders. 
We heard they were murdering and playing the mischief 
all along the line, and there was the blamedest excitement 
around here that night you ever saw. Some people out in 
the country gathered up what belongings they could carry 
in their arms, or perhaps put their stuff in a wheelbarrow 
and came into the town. Nobody slept. In fact, I tell you 
there was very little sleep here, or work either, for the bal- 
ance of that week. What with the funerals and all kinds of 
reports, and the crowds that come in to look around, the 
town was in constant turmoil. 



The Free Jakes 35 

Thursday we dragged our cannon back, and we did n't 
have so many to help pull then, by golly! 

My mother was a very philanthropic woman who made 
it a point to hunt up things for the needy and afflicted, and 
several times she sent me to the jail with a basket of food 
for Brown. The poor old fellow had a bayonet wound in 
his side and a sabre gash on the side of his head, and he was 
always lying down. They tried him soon after he was cap- 
tured, and the jail guards carried him across the street to 
the courthouse on a stretcher. A crowd was sure to be 
lookin' on, and it was kept back on either side by a file of 
soldiers. 

I was a little shaver, but I was at the trial every day, I 
reckon. I 'd run off from school to go. They could n't keep 
me away. You'd think Brown was pretty near dead to 
look at him on his stretcher. Sometimes he'd sit up a little 
bit, but he did n't talk much. 

He was condemned to be hung, and the appointed time 
came. It was a mild, pleasant day in early December. 
That morning Brown's wife visited him, and I was standing 
just opposite when she came out of the jail. She was 
dressed in deep black, with a heavy black veil over her 
face. 

The place of execution was an open field on the edge of 
the town. The country people flocked in, and a good many 
strangers were present from a distance. The town was 
under martial law that day, and Ashby's Black Horse 
Cavalry was scouting all around. You know Brown had 
said he never would be hung, and we thought an attempt 
might be made to liberate him. 

Brown rode from the jail to the gallows in a two-horse 
undertaker's wagon sitting on his coffin, and the sheriff sat 



36 John Brown's Raid 

on it with him. As they went along Brown remarked to his 
companion, "This is nice country through here." 

On the seat in front were the driver and the undertaker. 
All around the wagon rode an escort of cavalry, and on 
ahead marched a troop of infantry, and more infantry fol- 
lowed behind. When the procession reached the field the 
soldiers formed a hollow square around the scaffold. I sat 
up on a fence. The crowd was very quiet. It was a solemn 
occasion, and yet not specially dreadful. We all thought 
Brown was getting just what he'd worked for, and there 
was more or less joking at his expense. 

After the hanging the body was put in the coffin and sent 
to Harper's Ferry in the undertaker's wagon under a cav- 
alry guard. There Brown's wife was waiting to take the 
remains back North with her. 

Six other raiders had been captured — four of them 
white men and two coons — and their trials and executions 
followed within a few months. 

Some one made up a song soon after Brown was captured. 

It was sung to the tune of "Happy Land of Canaan," and 

was very popular at the time of the trial and all through 

the war. It ran along like this: 

There was an insurrection in Harper's Ferry section — 
John Brown thought the niggers would sustain him; 
But old Governor Wise put the goggles on his eyes 
And sent him to the happy land of Canaan. 

Chorus. Old John Brown, don't you see — 
Never will do to set a nigger free? 
People are a-comin' — comin' from all aroun' 
They '11 take you and hang you in old Charlestown. 

Old Governor Wise, to Washington he went 

And brought the marines on their own consent. 

He marched them to the Ferry, he marched them all aroun', 

He marched them to the engine house and took John Brown. 



The Farmer's Daughter^ 

When the battle of Bull Run was fought back in 1861 my 
people lived hyar where I do now in this same little ol' 
farmhouse. Well, it 's funny, I live hyar by myself, and 
this is a very retired place, but every now and then some 
stranger walks in on me. So you 're from way up in Yan- 
kee land. Do you see that old white gobbler out there 
on the woodpile in the yard? He 's my watchdog, and he 
warned me some one was comin' befo' you got to the gate. 

What wet weather we're havin'! My stove always 
smokes such days. I wish somebody would stick their hat 
up in that hole in the sky where the water comes from so 
the rain would stop and give me a chance to work in my 
garden. I reckon this rain has played the mischief with a 
heap of people. My brother was tellin' me he drove 
through the ford down hyar at the battlefield, and the 
water come right up into his buggy. That stream is only a 
common little old branch, too. 

Sunday, July 21st, was the date of the battle. The 

1 Her home was an old, low-roofed farmhouse. It was small and 
much patched and stood in a thin grove of trees where the wild flowers 
grew in the grass, and the turkeys and chickens rambled freely about. 
We sat in the little kitchen the greater part of one mild, showery day. 
The door was open, and we could look forth on the misty fields and 
woodlands. My hostess had reached the age of three score years and 
ten, but her tall form was unbent, her features retained their natural 
ruggedness, and there was all the fire of youth in her lively and uncon- 
ventional conversation. 



38 Bull Run 

Henry farm, where there was the hottest fightin' is about 
two miles from hyar. The Yankees had marched out from 
Washington a few days earher, and our men had been 
gettin' ready for 'em ; so we knew the battle was comin' off. 
The railroad passed along the edge of our farm, and the 
trains were runnin' all Saturday night bringin' Southern 
troops. The rumblin' of the wheels and the whistle for the 
crossin' hyar would wake us up every few minutes. 

Sunday came, and we did our mornin' work as usual. I 
was eighteen then, and I had four brothers, the youngest 
only three years old. We kept our horses and cattle out in 
the pasture, and the little boys would drive the cows up the 
first thing every mornin', and we'd milk 'em and let 'em 
go. Another thing we did befo' breakfast was feeding the 
fowls and the calves. I do that yet. All the animals have 
got to be fed befo' I'm fed. 

The mornin' was one of the prettiest I ever see in my 
life, and for a while everything was very still, but about 
six o'clock, just as breakfast was ready, a Yankee cannon 
that we called 01' Tom let loose. Paw had the boys go and 
get the colt from the pasture and put the saddle on him, 
and as soon as Paw was through eating he got on the colt 
and went down to the Henry house. If he had n't been too 
old and his health too bad he'd have been in the army. 
Anyway, he did what he could to help, and he never went 
to camp that he did n't carry something to the soldiers. 
This time he took along a tall black bottle of wine and a 
little glass to drink from. That glass belonged to me. 
Grandmother gave it to me when I was a little bit of a tot. 
I have it yet, and I 'm goin' to hang on to it as long as I 
live. The wine was blackberry wine. Maw made a lot of 
that every year. 



The Farmer's Daughter 39 

Paw got in with some Southern soldiers, and they went 
half a mile west along the pike. Then a battery at the 
Henry house mistook 'em for Yankees and fired a six 
pound cannon at 'em. The soldiers thought they'd better 
go back to where that battery was at. So Paw got out his 
wine and gave 'em each a drink, and away they went. 

After Paw had put the glass and bottle in the saddle- 
pockets he mounted his horse and came over in this direc- 
tion through a wheatfield. The wheat had been cut and 
stood there in shocks. As he was a-goin' along in the 
stubble he was close enough to the Union lines to hear the 
officers givin' commands, but they did n't seem to notice 
him. Paw was a man of mighty cool nerve and he did n't 
get frightened. 

On this side of the wheatfield was the Widow Dogan's 
pasture with a great, big, right-new worm fence around it. 
The colt would n't jump the fence, and Paw took off the 
top rail. But the colt balked just the same, and he had to 
take a whole panel down except two rails. The widow's 
cows were in the pasture, and Paw thought it would n't do 
to leave the fence down, because the cattle would get into 
the wheat. So he put up every bit of the fence as he found 
it and came on up to Groveton. The ground is high there, 
and the people from the scattered farmhouses were out on 
the hills watchin.' 01' Mrs. Dogan was there with all her 
children, and other women with their children, and lots of 
darkies were lookin', too. 

Some of the Yankees came across there later, and they 
picked up Mrs. Dogan's overseer. He had all the house- 
keys, and I don't know what she'd have done if they 
had n't let him go so he got home in time for supper. 

All through the early mornin' there was an artillery shot 



40 Bull Run 

every now and then, and about nine o'clock firin' com- 
menced with small arms. The first round had the funniest 
sound — just like thro win' a whole lot of lumber down. 
From that on the battle was hot. 

I was hyar with the children and Maw, and I was sittin* 
on the stake and rider fence out in front of the house when 
that first volley was fired. We had a tremendous wheat 
rick, and a great long ladder was leanin' against it. The 
children and I climbed up and stood on the top of the 
stack. But the trees down below hyar shut off all sight of 
the battlefield, and we could only see the bombs exploding. 
They were n't very near, though, and I don't remember 
hearin' a bomb whiz. 

The trains were still comin' on the railroad, but by and 
by a Union scout stopped one of 'em hyar at the crossin'. 
He'd slipped around from Sudley, and the rascal stayed 
two or three days in the woods near by. He told the officers 
on the train some story that he thought would keep their 
troops from gettin' to the battlefield, but he failed to ac- 
complish his purpose. The soldiers left the train and some 
of 'em came right down the road that passes our house and 
stopped to ask where they could fill their canteens. 

I directed 'em to our spring at the foot of the hill. I 
always was spokesman when Paw was away, and there 
were a few times I had to be spokesman when he was at 
home and 'fraid to open his mouth. A woman somehow 
has her wits about her and can get around an enemy the 
way a man can't. Often, during the war, if Paw was goin* 
somewhere on his horse, he'd take me up behind him rather 
than go unprotected alone. 

Those soldiers who spoke to me that July morning were 
so anxious to get in the fight that they double-quicked it to 




WATCHING THE BURSTING BOMBS 



The Farmer's Daughter 41 

the spring, and they went on from there at a gallop down 
as far as I could see. They were Jackson's foot cavalry, and 
Jackson's men always did double-quick. There was an offi- 
cer among 'em who rode the prettiest dapple-gray I ever 
see, and the men on foot were running in front of him and 
pulling the fences down. 

Another train full of troops was stopped by a man who 
lived two miles back hyar at Gainesville. He got on his 
horse and rode clear up to Thoroughfare Gap, six or seven 
miles, and told the officers on the train that our men were 
whipped. The man was just actin' the traitor, for he knew 
better. Well, he was always mean from the time he was 
little. The South Car'linians found out his trickery later 
in the day, and they was huntin' for him, but he was hid. 
They'd 'a' swung him up there in Gainesville in front of his 
mother's house. They would n't 'a' cared. You know 
they 're hotheaded people, anyhow. 

While the fightin' was goin' on that momin' the children 
and I rambled all over the place hyar, and then I did some- 
thing I guess nobody else on earth would do — I went up- 
stairs and lay down and had a good sleep. When I get tired 
I want a nap. The battle was n't a-botherin' me. Early in 
the day, when it was first startin', the thought came into 
my head — " Oh my God, if the Yankees should whip us! " 

But I said to myself, " They 're not a-goin' to do it " ; and 
I was just as easy the rest of the day as if there was nothin' 
goin' on. I was confident they was n't goin' to whip us 
noway. 

We had our dinner at the usual time, and we sat hyar 
watchin' the bombs explode. They exploded mighty high 
in the sky. I thought they was n't doin' much damage. 
Father was still away, but we set there laughin' and talkin', 



42 Bull Run 

and Mother never let on that she was anxious. He got 
home about two, and said the Yankees had driven our men 
more 'n a mile till they came to Jackson's brigade. That 
was where Jackson earned his nickname. His men stood 
like a stone wall. 

'Bout the time Paw finished eatin' dinner, hyar comes a 
Southern soldier to the house for water. He 'd been carryin* 
the wounded, and the front of his pants was all bloody 
where one of the wounded men had fallen against him. 

After he'd gone my two oldest brothers hitched up our 
ol' Jim horse; and he was a mighty good ol' horse, too, and 
he was n't so old either. They hitched him to the spring 
wagon, and they helped Paw put in a keg and a ten gallon 
lard can and fill 'em with water. Besides, they put in a 
basket with some victuals in it. There was a ham we'd 
cooked, and a whole lot of light bread — that's bread made 
with yeast. 

Paw took all those things in his wagon and drove around 
a back way and got two citizens to go along with him. 
They were nearly down to Wheeler's house when they saw 
some cavahy around there, and they did n't know whether 
the cavalrymen were Southerners or Northerners. One of 
the citizens rolled out of the wagon in a hurry to get away. 
He was 'fraid the Yankees was goin' to ketch him. Paw was 
left in the road with the other man. They concluded it was 
safe to proceed, and they kept on toward the battlefield. 
Pretty soon they saw a wounded Yankee lyin' in a fence 
corner, and he was beggin' for water. They gave him a 
drink and fixed him as comfortable as they could and went 
on. After that it was wounded and wounded all along. 

By that time the fightin' was over. The Union troops 
had kept chargin' up the hill at the Henry farm, but our 



The Farmer's Daughter 43 

side was constantly receivin' reinforcements, and finally 
our men charged. The Yankees fell back, and presently 
they got panic-stricken. They thought the Confederates 
were chasing 'em, and they hurried on till late in the night, 
and some never stopped short of Washington, which is 
thirty miles from the battlefield. 

In the afternoon we were settin' around the house till it 
was time to do the evenin' work, and we could see the 
black smoke and the red dust on the Sudley road where 
our men had got the Yankees runnin' — and if 't was n't 
the biggest dust ever kicked up! 

Paw never come home till just befo' day, and he found us 
all asleep. We knew he knew how to take care of himself. 
He 'd been haulin' wounded off the field in his wagon. Lots 
of people's teams was doin' the same. Every house in all 
that country was a hospital, and they had field hospitals, 
too. 

Monday morning, after Paw had slept a while, he went 
back to the battlefield. My oldest brother wanted to go 
with him, but Paw said the sights were too horrid for a boy 
of sixteen. All the wounded had been picked up when Paw 
got there except some of the Yankees. They'd crawled 
everywhere they were so afraid the Rebels were goin' to 
murder 'em. If they'd stayed where they were at when 
they were shot they'd have been cared for. Some crawled 
to the wheat shocks and pulled the bundles down over 'em. 
They hid in all sorts of places. More than twenty years 
afterward a couple of men out huntin' found a Yankee, way 
in a thick clump of pines, fallen between two trees. It 
looked like he'd been settin' leanin' against one of the trees 
till his strength failed him; and there were his bones and 
shoes and some scraps of clothing. 



44 Bull Run 

Soon after the battle ended one of our officers noticed 
something in the hand of a Yankee who was lyin' on the 
ground apparently dead. The officer got down and opened 
the man's hand, and in it was a white kid glove. The man 
happened to still have a little life left, and he opened his 
eyes. Then the officer put the glove back, and the fingers 
closed over it again. I suppose the man had married just 
befo' he left home. 

A second battle was fought hyar the next summer. 
Some of the fightin' was done right around our place and I 
had a chance to hear the Rebel yell. It sounded like a 
whole lot of schoolboys runnin' a rabbit. Indeed, the 
Southern soldiers were mo' like schoolboys runnin' a rabbit 
than anything else. They were full of mischief — cram full 
of it. 

A great many men were killed in that battle, and there 
were places where the ground was so soaked with blood 
that not one thing would grow on those spots for years. 

You 'd be surprised how careless the Yankees were about 
burying their dead. The Confederates did their part all 
right. Our men were buried so deep no ploughshare or 
anything will ever touch 'em. There they'll stay till the 
Day of Judgment. Some soldiers were sent hyar from 
Washington to bury the Union dead, and they just joked 
and talked politics with the old men in the neighborhood, 
and run on foolishness with the little white boys and little 
niggers. Of co'se they made some pretense at doin' their 
work, but often they'd leave a corpse right on top of the 
ground and throw on a little dirt, or turn half a log over it. 
One man had rocks piled on him, and another they put in a 
little narrow ravine and laid some rails on top. A detach- 
ment of artillery drove across the rails afterward, but a day 



The Farmer's Daughter 45 

or two later the man was removed — I reckon by soldiers 
who knew him. They buried him near an oak tree and cut 
his initials on the tree-trunk. 

Frequently I'd go to walk over the battlefield just to 
be at it, and I'd always pass a place where one of those 
men was layin' half buried on top of the ground. Enough 
dirt had been thrown over him to cover all except his head 
and one arm that was stretched out from his body. There 
was a road near him, and a big pear tree. I 'd go and look 
at him out of curiosity. He was a sharp-featured man with 
a long face and sandy hair and a sandy moustache. His 
eyes were closed, and he lay there just like he was asleep. 

Our men buried some of the Yankees. A railroad had 
been begun hyar and abandoned, and they gathered up six 
hundred and eighty-three Yankees and piled 'em up good 
at the end of this railroad embankment and then threw dirt 
down on top of 'em and covered 'em deep. Along in '64 and 
later Northern people used to come out hyar all in a cahoot 
from Washington to see the battlefield. They had it in their 
heads that a lot of Rebels were buried at the end of that 
embankment, and they went on their horses and hawhawed 
and rode all over the spot just for the fun of it. You people 
don't know how they behaved down hyar. I don't think 
devils could have been so mean. They wore the dirt off the 
bodies, and the citizens would go and throw it back on. 

One day I was standin' by the roadside with some 
friends down at Groveton when a Yankee doctor come 
ridin' along on his horse, and he had a leather strap full of 
skulls. The strap was run through at the ears. He held it 
up and said to us laughing, "Look at these Rebel skulls 
I've got." 

" Where 'd you get 'em?" I asked. 



46 Bull Run 

" Out hyar at the end of the embankment," he said. 

"Indeed, then, they're not Rebel skulls," I said. 
"They're skulls of your own men." 

But he took 'em along just the same. I hope they were 
always grinning at him and would n't let him sleep nights. 

Plenty of Yankees in the army, too, were no more a 
credit to the North than those people from Washington. 
If you knew what we know about the letters found on your 
dead and wounded hyar on the battlefield you'd be 
ashamed to say that any of your ancestors were in the 
Northern army. One letter was from a woman who asked 
her husband to send her some Rebel furniture, because she 
was tired of boarding and wanted to go to housekeeping. 
The top of the man's head was blown off, and my brother 
said, "He's got the Rebel furniture all right." 

The letters were written by people who had no education 
scarcely. We hear tell 'bout New England education and 
how Boston is the top of the pot, but the writers of those 
letters could n't even spell. 

From what I 've heard of the folks who live in Vermont 
and New Hampshire and your Northern mountains a stran- 
ger can hardly get a civil answer to a question. It's differ- 
ent down hyar. Our mountain people are polite and nice. I 
can tell you another thing — when I get on a train and set 
with a stranger I always know which section of country the 
stranger is from. If he's chatty he's Southern — if not, 
Northern. 

There's a lot mo' class distinction in the North than in 
the South. An officer come hyar one evening and wanted 
supper, and he had his orderly with him. Well, the hateful 
old thing kept the orderly settin' out on his horse while he 
himself was in gettin' warm by the fire. We were havin' 



The Farmer's Daughter 47 

misty, damp, foggy, wet weather just as we always do in 
the fall of the year, and Paw spoke to the officer 'bout the 
man outside. 

"Oh! he's only an orderly," the officer said. 

But Paw went out and told the man to come in. He 
came, and yet as long as he was in the room with the officer 
he looked just like he was on a hot griddle. 

Quite a lot of your Northern men was hyar some six or 
seven years ago to dedicate a monument, and they was 
wantin' whiskey, whiskey all the time. They had puffy 
bodies and purplish cheeks, and I never saw such a funny- 
lookin' set of people in my life. It seemed as if you might 
touch a match to some of 'em, and they'd be set on fire. 

In the spring of '65 the government sent men to dig up 
the remains of the Northern soldiers and carry 'em to 
Arlington, but they only just took the big bones, and not 
all of those. There were lots of arm and leg bones out hyar 
in the woods where the doctors did their amputating that 
they never got at all. It seems to me I don't want to be 
livin' at the resurrection when all the people's bones will 
get together to make their bodies complete. I might get 
hit. They 'd be flyin' around so thick it would be dangerous 
— it would so. 

I remember there was one skull layin' out on the pike a 
long time. The boys thought it was fun to see how far they 
could kick it. They could n't break it to save their lives, 
and everything that come along — horses and all — give 
that skull a kick and never broke a piece off of it. I don't 
know whatever became of it — whether it got kicked in the 
branch, or what happened to it, but it disappeared. 

Once some of us young people were goin' along side of 
Bull Run through the bushes. I was ahead, and the first 



48 Bull Run 

thing I knew I was face to face with a Yankee skull some 
one had set up there on a black stump about five feet high. 
I could n't help but laugh. It did n't scare me. I 'd seen 
too many. Yes, some of the most ridiculous things hap- 
pened during the war, and some of the saddest and some of 
the meanest. 

We had the Yankee soldiers around hyar most of the 
time, and some of 'em were posted as guards close by at the 
railroad crossin'. They would n't allow any citizen to go 
over the crossin' imless they were satisfied he was all right. 
In order to stop any one who might try to go along after 
dark they fixed wires across the road to take a man riding 
on horseback just below the chin. But our boys found out 
about the wires, and they'd duck their heads and ride 
under 'em. 

Black Frank Lewis had an ol' hog that used to ramble all 
about the country, and one night the hog was rootin' in the 
leaves near the crossin', and the Yankees swore it was the 
Rebels. They caught a glimpse of it by the light of their 
lantern and shot and killed it. Then they skinned it right 
there, and some wrote home that they had shot a panther 
which measured five feet from the tip of its nose to the end 
of its tail. 

A good many of these Yankees had joined the army to 
get a bounty with the understanding that they'd only be 
used to protect the capital. But you know the United 
States government never kept a promise, and they were 
awful afraid they'd be sent down to fight around Rich- 
mond. Some of 'em cut up Jack and were mean as the 01' 
Scratch, but we tried our best not to have any trouble 
with 'em. "Better have the good will of a dog than the 
bad," Mother said. 



The Farmer's Daughter 49 

Tongue-lashin' 'em did n't pay. Sometimes my youngest 
brother made us anxious, for he was the greatest little ras- 
cal, and he'd say things befo' 'em. But he lisped, and they 
could n't understand him. The rest of us would n't never 
say much to 'em, but if they got cuttin' up too high and 
stealin' we'd save what we could. 01' Doctor Stewart up 
hyar kept a hatchet sharpened to split their heads open, 
and he let 'em know it. They told him if there was mo' 
ready that way, they'd behave themselves. 

Once a prowler come round to where we had all our fowls 
fastened in the paddock. The wretch started to crawl in 
there and had got half way under the high log fence when 
my little brother saw him. The boy took a good stout apple- 
stick and gave him the biggest lamming I ever looked at, 
and the feller was glad to back out and slink off. 

Another time I found a Yankee in our yard chasin' the 
chickens, and I told him to let 'em alone. He said: "I'll 
leave you two. You can be thankful I won't take 'em all. 
You can raise a dom sight from two." 

But he didn't carry off any at all. He'd got 'em to 
runnin' and he could n't ketch 'em. We had some guineas, 
but the soldiers never bothered them. They thought guin- 
eas was n't fit to eat, and that we just kept 'em to scare off 
hawks. 

For a while we had our hens underneath the kitchen. 
There was forty or fifty — a whole gang of 'em. The 
kitchen was underpinned all around, but some of the rocks 
were loose near the back door so we could pull 'em out, and 
my younger brothers would get in there and hunt for the 
eggs. They were little chaps who could crawl everywhere. 
Under the stove was a hole that had got burnt through the 
floor, and we'd laid a piece of board over it. We threw the 



50 Bull Run 

chickens' feed down that hole. A guard who had been 
detailed to stay at the house and protect our property 
heard one of the chickens squawk when another pecked it, 
and he said; "Oh! you-all got your chickens under hyar. I 
never knew that befo', and I been hyar with you nearly 
three weeks." 

Besides our ol' Jim horse we had another horse named 
Barney. It was funny to see Barney sometimes. Once 
some Yankee cavalrymen got after him and chased him 
into our potato patch. We saw 'em racin' around there and 
doin' their best to ketch him, and he was so smart he 
would n't let 'em do it. He'd stop short off and they'd go 
on past him, and he played that same trick on 'em again 
and again. It's a wonder they did n't shoot him. They did 
some tall cussin', and if every oath had been a Parrott shot 
they would have killed all the people within range. Pretty 
soon an officer came, and he made 'em go away. If I 'd been 
him I'd have taken my saber and whacked some of 'em. 
Barney went down in the woods and stayed there till they 
were all out of the country. 

One of Barney's hoofs was too long. I don't know what 
had happened to him. He was n't lame, but that hoof made 
him walk lame, though we could work him anywhere and 
ride him. I 've ridden him many a time. After bein' chased 
by the Yankees he never could bear the sight of a blue coat. 
It would make him jump like he was goin' to jump out of 
his skin. We had a neighbor who wore an old blue army 
overcoat he'd picked up on the battlefield. Once I went to 
where he lived on some errand, and I rode Barney. I got to 
the man's gate, and he come out of the house wearin' that 
coat, and I told him to stop where he was. But he walked 
right along to the gate, and Barney drew himself up in a 



The Farmer's Daughter 51 

hump and bucked. If I'd had a sidesaddle I could have 
stayed on, but I had a cavalry saddle, and I went over 
backwards onto a pile of stones. I hurt my thumb — that 
was all. When the ol' fool in the blue overcoat saw what 
he'd done he kept back, and the horse stood still. I got 
on Barney and rode away. I could have killed that man, 
but I never said no mo' to him. I 'm one of these that treat 
a man with silent contempt when they have no use for him. 

This was such a small ol' house that most of the soldiers 
thought there was nothin' inside worth takin', but we had 
some silver spoons and a few other small articles that were 
of value. Women wore hoops then, and I made a big pocket 
and put our valuables in it and wore it under my hoops 
when the Yankees were around. 

They used to help themselves to the potatoes in our po- 
tato patch. They did n't get many, though, for they only 
had bayonets and spoons and such things to dig with. 

The Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois men — they were the 
meanest — except the riffraff from the cities, and one regi- 
ment from Michigan. The colonel of that regiment was as 
mean as the men were, and there was a major who was 
meaner 'n any of 'em. Long after dark, one warm Septem- 
ber night, that major and two or three of his men come in 
hyar without knockin'. I was up, but Maw and the chil- 
dren had gone to bed. Paw was away. An officer had sent 
for him to come and pilot some of the troops on an expedi- 
tion they were makin' that night, and Paw said they were 
shootin' at every cedar bush along the way takin' it for a 
Rebel. 

The major wanted to boil some coffee, and I said, "I'll 
boil it for you." 

I was n't goin' to let 'em in the kitchen to save their 



52 Bull Run 

necks, because I and my third brother had a pet sheep 
fastened up there. She kept mighty mum that night and 
never bleated once. 

The coffee had n't hardly come to a boil when the men 
wanted it. I brought it to 'em, and they sat around a table 
on the porch and drank it. They'd brought brown sugar 
for sweetening and they had some ol' crackers to eat. I 
gave 'em a lamp. That was befo' coal oil days, and we 
burnt butter in it. While they sat there they were makin' 
mean remarks ' bout one of the local women. I wish she'd 
heard what they said. She would jaw and abuse the Yan- 
kees and say all sorts of hateful things to 'em, and yet 
later she turned right around and married a Yankee 
soldier. 

Those men stayed hyar till morning. We had a great big 
stack of hay next to the barn, and they would have fed 
their horses at it, but Paw had put briery hay on the out- 
side on purpose, and when they got their hands into it they 
thought it was no good. Half of our garden was full of the 
biggest cabbages I ever see, and they just stripped that 
garden of cabbages and everything else. Besides they 
killed all the turkeys on the place. It was n't that they 
wanted the things for food, but they thought they were 
starvin' us Rebels. When they left they loaded themselves 
up, and they scattered turkeys and cabbages along the road 
half way to Gainesville. 

We see hard times in the war. The women had to turn 
their dresses upside down and wrongside fore and inside 
out to make 'em last. My youngest brother had pants 
made out of pretty gray cloth that had been some Southern 
soldier's saddle-blanket, and his jacket was made out of a 
blue army overcoat. The battlefields was quite a help to 



The Farmer's Daughter 53 

us, for you could find almost anything on 'em — all but a 
steam engine. I never went out on 'em that I did n't bring 
back a load of plunder. That 's where we got materials for 
our shoes. Cartridge boxes were good for soles, tent canvas 
would turn water and was all right for the upper part, and 
we tipped 'em with patent leather from soldiers' belts. 
Paw could make the rougher shoes. But a fellow who lived 
out across the battlefield made shoes for all over the coun- 
try. We took the stuff for our best shoes right to his house 
to be made up. 

Well, I've told you 'bout the fightin' round hyar. It 
makes me mad when people talk in favor of war. I 've got 
no use for it, and I 've got no use for battle vessels or big 
guns. It would pay a heap better to put the money into 
missions. 



VI 

The Slave Blacksmith ^ 

I BEEN in this region all my life — eighty years. In my 
young days I belonged to Mr. Lewis, and I had a little 
blacksmith's shop right hyar at Groveton where I live now 
at the cross-roads. There was only two or three houses 
hyar then just as there are to-day. 

The Confederates had been kickin' up around hyar for 
some time befo' the battle. Oh land, yes! and they had 
fo'ts six miles from hyar at Manassa' and had held fo'th 
there a good while. 

We colored people knew that the war was on foot, and we 
thought slavery would n't be allowed any mo' if the North 
won. Very few of us could read at all or even knew the 
alphabet, and our masters would have kept us ignorant 
about the meaning of the war, but the news leaked out so 
we got hold of it slightly. As the war went on the North 
had enough well-wishers among the colored people for 
them to be twenty-five thousand strong in its armies on the 
field. I heard one colored man say that he 'd rather lose his 
wife from his family than have the North beaten. 

We wanted liberty — we wanted to be free men and 
women, and not like the Children of Israel in bondage in 
Egypt. We wanted to inherit the promised land. In the 

1 He was a courteous, intelligent man, white-haired and spectacled. 
I visited him at his house, which, though weather-worn, was clean and 
comfortable. 



The Slave Blacksmith 55 

old slave times I've known men to freeze to death they 
were so thinly clad. They'd have ragged jackets and no 
undershirt, and old patched trousers with no drawers un- 
derneath. Exposure and poor living made the slaves get 
pleurisy — what we call pneumonia now — and they'd have 
rheumatic pains. Planters from farther South would come 
hyar to market and buy up laborers for their tobacco and 
cotton plantations, and I've seen those slaves goin' along 
handcuffed, and they'd be put in jail at night to keep 'em 
from trjan' to escape. We was n't allowed to go visitin' 
from house to house. They had paterollers who went about 
on horseback at night and patrolled all the roads. Those 
paterollers would come to your house to see who you'd got 
there, and who was out of place. If they found you on the 
highway without a pass from your boss, and you could n't 
give a satisfactory account of yourself, they'd lay on so 
many lashes. 

Well, as I was sayin', we had Confederate soldiers all 
around this north coast befo' the battle of Bull Run, and 
we were a-lookin' for a battle but did n't know which way 
it would be comin' in. Things kept kind o' quiet till the 
middle of July. Then, on a Thursday, mind you, the Union 
troops come down through a little village called Center- 
ville, six miles east of hyar, and a long-range cannonade 
was begun. There was no musketry. It was just a little 
artillery skirmish with guns stationed on both sides of the 
Run firing back and fo'th. 

Our employers took a big lot of us slaves down in the 
Bull Run bottom to blockade the road by chopping down 
trees. The trees were great big oaks, and four men would 
chop at a single one at the same time. After we 'd cut a tree 
till it would n't take much to throw it we'd let it stand, but 



56 Bull Run 

of co'se some few trees fell without our intending to have 
'em. When we'd got enough fixed we sat down right there 
waiting for orders. If the enemy got too strong we was 
expected to bounce up, throw the trees, and escape. We 
stayed on the field Thursday night just as the soldiers did. 
Friday the Union troops fell back to their camp, and we 
slaves went home. 

Sunday morning come around. Everything was calm, 
and the sun was shining bright and hot. I'd had my 
breakfast and was standing in the yard bef o' my shop door 
lookin' to see what I could see when I heard the boom of a 
cannon. I looked down the Fairfax Road and seen a smoke 
raisin' above the trees. Then I heard the pop of a return 
shot from the Southern side. The cannon kept on firin', 
and the people around hyar were all lookin' on from their 
houses. This is high ground and we had a beautiful view. 

About ten o'clock the Union infantry crossed Bull Run, 
and then I could see 'em goin' helter-skelter crossways and 
every way hardly a mile distant. Yes, I could see both 
gangs and the whole maneuvering. My Lord ! I was lookin' 
right at the smoke blazin' out of the guns. There was a 
constant flicker of firin', and the noise was mo' like a hail- 
storm on a roof than anything else I can compare it to. I 
did n't go home to get any dinner that day. I had some- 
thing else to think about. It was a very exciting time, I 
tell you. It was, indeed! 

The fighting that I could see was over in an hour or so, 
but the bombooing and bumming continued until about 
two. Then the whole Northern army retreated. We 
could n't see the men, but we could see a mountainous 
cloud of dust rising up through the tops of the trees from 
the roads they were on. The Southern troops followed 'em 



The Slave Blacksmith 57 

across the Run and kept up their cannonading until about 
four o'clock. 

When we colored people knew the Northern army had 
been beaten we felt just like we were worse off than we ever 
was, and we thought we'd be barbarously treated. The 
South knew in its soul that our sympathy was on the other 
side. I've heard our masters talkin' that way, and they 
used to tell us so. Whatever they said we had to keep silent 
and take the wink as good as a nod. We could n't argue. 
We just let a still tongue carry a wise head — that's all. 

On Monday lots of people come from all directions and 
went perusin' on the battlefield, and I went over that way 
myself, but I soon turned back after I began to come 
across dead men. I'd seen enough. I heard the Southern 
soldiers say that some of their men were killed with poi- 
soned bullets. The poison was in a thin piece of some dif- 
ferent metal at the big end. I reckon I 've seen a thousand 
of those bullets that have been picked up around hyar. 
When the ball went into a plank or a sapling or a man's 
body that poisonous plate stayed there and let loose the 
poison, even if the lead part went on and out. But North- 
ern soldiers have told me that such bullets were just an 
invention for cleaning out the gun barrel as they were fired. 

We saw a good deal of the soldiers all through the war — 
coming and going and camping and fighting. Once a Fed- 
eral officer stopped at my shop, and his men stood lined up 
out in the road. While he was talking with me one of the 
men fell dead as a beef, shot by a bullet from the Con- 
federates who were a full quarter of a mile away. 

If the soldiers were camped anywhere near they'd be 
comin' to our houses to buy milk, butter, pies, or anything. 
I 've had 'em in my house many a time, both Northern and 



58 Bull Run 

Southern soldiers. Some were just as genteel as if they'd 
been born in a church. But you'd find scalawags, too — 
men who were filthy and with no behavior about 'em. 
They was n't accustomed to behaving, and no doubt they 
was rough in their own homes. Some of 'em was convicts 
cut loose from the Richmond Penitentiary. They were 
sent out hyar with the stripes on 'em to throw up breast- 
works, and they were just as mean and dirty people as the 
sun ever shone on. 

We lost considerable in the line of things to eat. The sol- 
diers would milk our cows out in the field and take the milk 
away, and they'd steal our chickens, geese, and turkeys. 
The Northern and Southern men was alike about takin' 
those things — one side stole just as much as the other. 
But I don't blame 'em for stealin' chickens — why cer- 
tainly not. I'd do the same thing myself in their place. 
Yes, if I 'd been for weeks and months out on the field eat- 
ing only beef and hardtack, and I found a good fat hen 
I 'd take that hen sure. 

But of co'se we did n't like to have our things carried off, 
and if we could ketch a man stealin', and could overpower 
him, we saved our property; and if we were not able to do 
that the things had to go 'long. There was no civil law then, 
and you could n't do anything more about it. When people 
refugeed and left their houses vacant the soldiers would go 
in and take the wearin' clothes and whatever else they 
pleased. Often though it was the neighbors instead of the 
soldiers that did such pilfering. Clothing was very skurce 
among the Rebels in the last part of the war, and they wore 
anything they could get on except United States blue. 
That was n't allowed. They had on a general mixture of 
clothing of all sorts, and they were ragged and dirty. 



The Slave Blacksmith 59 

Sometimes we'd go to an officer at the army headquar- 
ters and say, "Sir, I wish to have a guard on my place." 

The officer would say, "All right, but you'll have to be 
responsible for him and see that he's not jerked up by the 
enemy." 

So a soldier would be detailed to go and protect your 
place, and he'd stay right there till he was ordered in, even 
if the balance of his troop went away. 

After the Emancipation Proclamation I set up my own 
blacksmith shop and went to work. I felt like a man then, 
and as if I had something to work for. But some, as soon as 
they were free, quit work, and away they went, which was . 
a great mistake. I have to acknowledge there 's mo' loafing 
now than befo' the war. The slave had a man behind him 
with a bull whip, arid was made to work whether he wanted 
to or not. But you go to the towns and villages now, and 
you'll find big, able-bodied men standing around doing 
nothing. A man I knew was offered a dollar and a quarter 
a day. He said he could n't board himself for that, and 
because the money was n't comin' fast enough he kep' on 
loafin'. But no man is wise to walk around a small job 
when he 's out of work. Freedom ain't made us all thrifty, 
and though some colored men are worth thirty-five or forty 
thousand dollars others ain't worth a decent suit of clothes. 

Perhaps you'd be interested to know that I seen a ghost 
on the battlefield once. There was a woman in the neigh- 
borhood whose company I was very fond of, and I often 
went to call on her. It was a lonesome road to where she 
lived and it went across the battlefield. One night I was 
startin' out to call on her, and I picked up my double- 
bar'led gun to carry along. I thought some dog might 
bother me, or I might see a wild turkey up a tree. I 'd been 



60 Bull Run 

out in the evenin' a while befo' and seen a turkey, and I 
came cl'ar home, got my gun, and crep' back and killed 
him. 

Anyway, the gun was company, and I took it on my 
shoulder and started. The night was pleasant and the 
stars was shining, but the air was cool and the wind was 
blowin' pretty high. I walked along until I saw somethin' 
like a big black dog comin' across the battlefield. " If that 
dog attacks me I '11 give him both bar'ls " I thought. 

I felt pretty safe with that gun in my hands, for I'd 
never known it to miss fire. After cocking it ready for 
business I checked up to let the animal go by if it wanted 
to; but as soon as I stopped that stopped, too. Then, in a 
minute or so, it started on again. The country was all 
ripped up and the fences gone, and the dog came straight 
along from the field down in the hollow of the road. 
So I walked out on the edge of the road with my gun 
pointed right at where the animal was. I 'd got within ten 
feet of it when, Blessed Lord! I saw it was nothing but a 
cedar bush. It was kind of a goose-egg shape and had been 
cut off, and the breeze of the air had made it roll. There's 
many a man would have run and always thought afterward 
he'd seen a mystery. 

When I found out what it was I let the hammers down, 
throwed my gun up on my shoulder, and went on. Anyhow 
I had a good story to tell when I made my call. 



VII 

The Widow's Son ^ 

They fought the battle of Shiloh hyar early in the month 

of April back in 1862, when I was seventeen years old. My 

father was dead, and I helped Mother run our farm. This 

was a very rough, thinly-settled region then. Oh! there 

wasn't near the people livin' hyar that there are now. 

Five miles north was Shiloh Church, the little log building 

which gave the battle its name, and two miles farther on 

was Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River where the 

Union troops got off the steamboats. The nearest town was 

Corinth, and so it is still. That's fifteen miles to the 

south. 

We had a rather rude, old-fashioned, hewed-log house, 

but it was a great big one, about twenty by twenty-two 

feet, and two stories high. Near by was an outdoor kitchen 

with a hearth in it that went from one side to the other. If 

it had n't been for that wide hearth the little colored fellers 

would have got the building afire when they were left 

in there. The slaves liked to congregate in the outdoor 

kitchen after supper and sit around a big log fire and talk 

and laugh till bedtime. They lived in four or five one-room 

log cabins about sixteen feet square. The cracks between 

^ The narrator was a large-framed, stoop-shouldered man with a 
long white beard. I met him in his home yard and observed that his 
failing eyesight compelled him to feel his way about with a cane. While 
he told his story we sat on the porch of his large, plain farmhouse. 
Roxmdabout were irregular fields in thin oak woods. 



62 Shiloh 

the logs was daubed with mud, and the cabins was right 
comfortable. 

The slaves was n't mistreated hyar, and they seemed 
contented. Farther south, where there were big quanti- 
ties of 'em, they were bossed by overseers who were often 
pretty rough. But I don't think it was the general custom 
to abuse 'em anywhere. They were property, and it was for 
the owner's interest to keep 'em in good condition, and to 
send for the doctor if they were sick so they'd be cured and 
get back to work quicker. 

The crops on our farm were principally corn, oats, and 
wheat; and we raised some horses and cows. There was a 
good range hyar, and we let the farm animals all run out. 
We fed our cows some so they'd give more milk and we'd 
have better butter, but the balance of the stock never got 
any home feeding unless in a real cold time in winter. 

The hogs picked up their own living, too. They found 
plenty of mast, such as beech and hickory nuts and acorns, 
and in the fall there were muscadines all over the bottoms. 
The hogs loved those grapes, and they had no trouble get- 
ting 'em, for after the grapes got ripe the wind would shake 
'em down. We called the hogs up often enough to keep 'em 
gentle. They'd have gone plumb wild if we had n't tended 
to 'em. Pork time come along about November, and then 
we'd get the hogs together by carrying corn to drop along 
and toll 'em all up into a fenced lot. We'd mark the ears of 
the young ones so they would n't be taken by other people, 
and we'd pick out the ones we wanted to butcher and put 
'em in a pen and feed 'em. When the weather got good 
and cold, and the hogs were fat enough we butchered 'em. 
Then we'd have bacon and sausage, and we'd have souse 
made out of the feet and head. That souse was a kind of 



The Widow's Son 63 

jelly. Hit was seasoned all up with different ingrediences 
and pressed, and the women would slice it out about like 
tobacco plugs and put it on the table cold. 

The folks hyar went a hundred miles to Memphis 
or Nashville to market. Hit took two weeks to go and 
come. They'd carry cotton and a heap of eggs, poultry, 
and things like that, and bring provisions back. The prod- 
uce was loaded into a covered wagon with a bottom that 
bowed down low in the middle. Four yoke of oxen were 
hitched to it, and the farmer and a nigger man would set 
back under the cover and guide the steers by hollerin', 
"Gee," and, "Whoa, come," to 'em. 

Not much land had been cleared, and we had as fine tim- 
ber in the bottoms as ever you see anywhere in the world. 
Some of the oak trees would make a thousand rails. A heap 
of good oak timber grew on the uplands, too, but it was 
more knotty and not so large. The uplands have been pow- 
erfully butchered. We'd deaden the trees — girdle 'em, you 
know — and when they fell we'd roll 'em up in a heap and 
bum 'em to get 'em out of the way. There was lots of 
squirrels jumpin' about in the woods, and game of all kinds 
was plenty. 

Before the battle our Confederate army was stationed at 
Corinth, and our cavalry would come out hyar tryin' to no- 
tice if the Federals had made any inroads. There were boys 
from this region in both armies. We used to call those that 
were fighting on the Northern side "homemade Yankees." 
One of the officers in Grant's army was a man who had 
been quite prominent in our local politics, and his troops 
captured a young cavalryman whose home was in this 
neighborhood. So the prisoner's father went to that officer 
and said: "I'd love to have you let my boy off. I've 



64 Shiloh 

always voted for you"; and the officer allowed the boy 
to go. 

The first little bad time we had was one day about a fort- 
night before the battle. I was down hyar at the creek with 
a nigger or two. We were clearing new land, and the nig- 
gers was girdling trees and cuttin' bushes, and I was bossin' 
'em. We was close to the road, and by and by I heard some 
one call out, "Halt!" 

Hit was the first time I 'd heard that word. I looked and 
saw a Confederate soldier and two citizens sitting on their 
horses out on the road. They'd been after the mail. A little 
farther off were some Yankees who called out, "Advance!" 

"I'll be blessed if I'll advance," the Confederate soldier 
said, and he and the citizens started to ride away. 

Then I heard a shot singing, and it went through and 
through one of the citizens. He tumbled to the ground and 
the other two galloped off. The man who was shot called 
me, but I was afraid to go to him, and the Yankees come 
and took him to the nearest house. They had one of their 
doctors tend to his wound, and after that the neighbors 
carried him on a litter about four miles to his home. 

When I come on up from the creek to the house hyar it 
looked to me like the whole face of the earth was covered 
with Yankee cavalry and soldiers. As soon as I could I 
went to where the man who'd been shot was, and he 
whispered to me that he'd been bringin' a bunch of letters 
that our soldiers at Cumberland Gap had written to their 
home folks around hyar. After he fell off his horse he'd 
crawled to the fence and poked those letters through a 
crack, and he wanted me to get 'em. So I went right 
straight there and took 'em away. 

The Union troops camped that night near our house, but 



The Widow's Son 65 

evacuated back to Pittsburg Landing the next day. More 
and more of 'em kept congregating there, and some of 'em 
were out hyar every day or two. By the 6th of April they 'd 
increased to forty thousand. They did n't throw up any 
earthworks or take any special precautions because Gen- 
eral Grant was expectin' the Confederates would stay at 
Corinth till he got ready to attack 'em. But General 
Johnston, the Confederate commander, brought his army 
out hyar. They had an awful time comin' with their wag- 
ons and cannon. Hit had been rainy, and the roads was so 
bad the cannon kept miring down, and the men had to be 
prizing 'em out with poles all the way. On some of these old 
bare knobs, where the ground is full of lime and nothing 
ever grows, the mud rolls up as a wagon goes over it and 
makes solid wheels and has to be cut out from between the 
spokes. The mud delayed the army so much it staved the 
battle off one day. 

We knew there was goin' to be a hard fight, and I went 
to bed Saturday night expectin' it would come in at any 
minute. I did n't sleep a wink. I heard the first guns at 
four-fifty-five the next morning, and the sound was like the 
popping of com. The firin' got heavier and heavier, and 
soon the roaring of cannon was jarring the window sashes, 
and the musketry became a constant sound like a storm. 
But later the firin' would once in a while sort of cease, and 
we'd think maybe they was done. Pretty soon, though, 
they 'd break out again. 

The fightin' had n't been goin' on long when the 
wounded began to come back. Some walked, and some 
was hauled in ambulances. As many as could be accom- 
modated come to our house. We moved the beds from the 
lower rooms upstairs, and the wounded were laid in there 



66 Shiloh 

on pallets. They were arranged in rows with aisles for the 
doctors to go along and see what they needed, and they 
were groanin' and takin' on, and it was mighty bad. Some 
had to have limbs taken off, and the doctors did the ampu- 
tating on a table in the hall. The veranda was crowded 
with wounded, too, and so was the yard. They lay on the 
ground with just their blankets under 'em, though it was 
chilly weather and the ground was wet. 

Quite a lot of soldiers come to the house askin' for food, 
and our old cook went to cookin' for 'em. She was a 
mighty good cook, old Nancy was. She 'd pass out the food 
and the soldiers would eat it in their hands. Some had little 
pans in their haversacks to put food in. Nancy kept cookin' 
the biscuit and ham-meat and bacon, and things like that, 
till she cooked all that we had. 

I was just a-standin' around there skeered right smart. 
Mother and I and my two little brothers went to a neigh- 
bor's house to stay that night. 

The Yankees had been driven way back to the banks of 
the river, and most likely they'd all been captured if 
twenty-five thousand fresh troops hadn't arrived. Hit 
looked to me next day as if our soldiers was runnin' away. 
They come scattering along two or three in a bunch at first, 
but by and by so many were retreatin' back that they were 
everywhere. All the time the ambulances was goin' 
through the mud to Corinth with the wounded, and the 
blood was shakin' out hke the drivers was haulin' hogs just 
butchered. About two thousand men had been killed and 
eight thousand wounded on each side. I recollect it was 
several days before all the wounded were taken away from 
our house. I come up there every day to help wait on 'em, 
carryin' water or any little nourishment. 



The Widow's Son 67 

There was a right smart fight near by on Tuesday. A few 
of the Union troops come out hyar, and our men tackled 
'em, and they went back faster 'n they 'd come. After that 
the Union army moved very cautiously, but before long 
they established a camp about half a mile from us, and they 
were there as late as June. Some of 'em come into our 
house and looked around, but they spoke noways harsh to 
nobody. 

Our hogs used to go to the camp right in among the tents, 
and they got very fat feeding on the litter, wastage, and 
slop, and the soldiers would knock 'em in the head on the 
sly and clean 'em and eat 'em. The soldiers killed a good 
many cattle that they picked up around the country. 
They got all of ourn. I don't think we had ary head left. 
But you could n't hardly blame 'em for takin' things to 
eat. I heard one soldier say his colonel would steal right 
in the middle of a battle if he had a chance. The soldier 
said he 'd seen the colonel ridin' around with his troops in 
action and a side of bacon under his arm. 

That was a lawless time, and the army swept the country 
just like a cyclone. Hit took everything there was. Some 
of the soldiers was honest and would pay for what they got, 
but most would take things and go on. Often they would 
walk into a house and order the women to cook 'em a meal 
of victuals, but they never done us that-a-way. 

We could n't make no crops that year. The troops went 
all through the fields, and where they marched they tore 
the fences down, and lots of the rails was burnt up in their 
campfires. An old rail burnt pretty good in a wet time. We 
took the rails that were left and condensed our fences. 
There was only enough to go around a couple of acres, and 
by the time we'd got the land ploughed and our corn 



68 Shiloh 

planted it was the last of June, I reckon. We raised some 
roas'in' years, but the frost come before the corn was 
ripe. 

The wagoners was drawing from Pittsburg Landing past 
our place to the camp, and they'd get off and help them- 
selves to our roas'in' years. I'd holler at 'em, and they'd 
run like lightning, but that was all a pretence. Mother 
knew they would n't listen at me much, and she com- 
plained to the wagon-master that they was takin' what 
little we had to live on. Then he give the teamsters an 
awful cussin' and scoldin', but I reckon that was pretence, 
too. 

All our hogs had been taken, so I went off and bought two 
shoats and brought 'em hyar. The army wagons was 
haulin' com, and so much fell out of the sacks and dribbled 
along the ground that our shoats would foller the wagons 
and get all they wanted to eat. We missed 'em one day and 
my brothers and I went to look to see where they was. We 
did n't know what in the world had become of 'em. Pretty 
soon we found their hides and entrails by the wayside. 
The teamsters had skinned 'em and thrown 'em on their 
wagons. 

Two of our horses was took and we'd have lost the other 
two if we had n't kept 'em locked up. By spring we had 
nothing to feed 'em on, and we would let 'em graze down in 
the creek bottom where we was commencin' to try to make 
a crop. They shrunk up and got pretty thin, but they 
picked up enough to keep alive. 

One noon, after we'd been to the house and eaten dinner, 
we come back and the best horse was gone. I follered 
around the fence till I come to a place where it was let 
down, and there was the horse's tracks. He was tolerably 



The Widow's Son 69 

fresh shod, and I knew those tracks was his, and I did n't 
have no doubt that the soldiers had got him. 

I was afraid to go over to the camp because I might be 
shot for a spy before I got there. But I kept a-studyin' 
about it, and I decided I must go. Hit was a dangerous 
errand, and I thought I ought to avoid suspicion by lookin' 
as much hke a citizen as I could. So I got my little brother 
and put him up on the horse behind me. I had a saddle and 
he had a blanket to sit on. As we went on through the camp 
we met a feller comin' out ridin' the stolen horse. The horse 
had a cavahy rig on, but the little horse I was on and the 
stolen horse knew each other and tried to smell noses. I 
just jerked my horse away and proceeded on to head- 
quarters. 

The general was sitting out on the veranda of the house 
with officers all around, and I was too green and skeered to 
say anything. Pretty soon the general noticed that I was 
hangin' around anxious for something, and he asked what 
I wanted. I told him one of his men had taken a horse out 
of my field, and I could n't make a crop with the one 
little horse I had left. 

"You come back to-morrer," the general says. 

On the way home I passed the place where the army 
horses was grazin', and one of the men asked me if I'd got 
what I went after. He'd sort o' smelt a mouse, and he 
swore I 'd better keep out of the camp. But the next day 
I put my little brother behind me and went to the general. 
He turned to one of his officers dhectly, and said "Lieu- 
tenant, you go with this boy and look over the camp, and 
if you find a horse he says is his bring the feller who has it 
hyar." 

We found the horse tied to a stake among the tents, and 



70 Shiloh 

the officer said to the man who had stolen it, "You go with 
me. 

We went to the general leadin' the horse, and the man 
said, "I found him out hyar on the commons." 

"Well, old man," I says, "I don't know as I know what 
commons are, but you got him in the field where I was 
ploughin'." He was n't an old man, but that was what I 
called him. 

Then the general said, "Lieutenant, you take this man 
away and we'll punish him." 

I went back home with the horse, but he was so good- 
lookin' I was afraid he'd be stole again, and I sold him after 
I 'd made a crop. You had to have some old shag with his 
back skinned, and pore and boney, if you wanted to keep 
him. 



VIII 

A Battlefield Farmer^ 

I LIVED in a log house on the main road half a mile south of 
Shiloh Church. So I was right plumb in the worst danger 
thar was at all. I'd bought the place in '59 and paid two 
hundred and fifty dollars on it, and I gave my note for two 
hundred and fifty more. The land was already cleared, and 
thar was a cotton gin on the place. I chopped down trees 
and built the house myself. We did n't have no such thing 
as a lumber house in this country then much. My house 
had jist one room and no loft. The roof was made of thin 
oak boards, three feet long, split out by hand, and put on 
like shingles. Close by was a smokehouse and a little 
barn. 

I was young them days — not much over thirty at the 
time of the battle — and I had a wife and two children. 

After the Yankees begun to gather hyar early in March, 

1862, some of 'em was pretty generally around my place 

every day. I had some fodder stacked in the field — two 

big stacks — and they tuck that the first thing. They tuck 

nineteen bales of cotton, which was all I had ginned, and 

carried it down to their steamboats, and I never saw any 

more of it. That same day they tuck my corn, and I says 

1 He was a slight, smooth-faced old man, who was much more 
lively mentally than he was physically. I found him living with a son- 
in-law off on a half-wild by-road near the battlefield. The day I visited 
him was warm, and we sat in the open passage between the two sec- 
tions of the one-story dwelling. 



72 Shiloh 

to the feller that drove up to the crib, "I'd ruther you'd 
jist shoot me down than take my corn." 

He told me I did n't know what war was. Well, I did n't, 
and I don't want to know what it is no more. 

They gave me vouchers for the truck they carried off, 
and I was hopin' I might git money for them vouchers; but 
one mornin' some soldiers broke into my house while I was 
away. Thar was a key lock on the front door, but only a 
thumb bolt on the back door. By poundin' off a board that 
was nailed over a space between the logs near the back door 
they reached in and slid the bolt. When I got home at noon 
I found six of 'em in thar cookin' dinner. I threatened to 
complain of 'em, and they told me they'd pay me a gold 
dollar for their dinner. So I said, "All right." 

But after they'd gone I found they'd taken my vouchers 
and every paper I had on top of the earth, and they tuck 
the old woman's scissors and needles, and they tuck my 
razor, and they tuck my clothes so I did n't have an ex- 
tra suit or nothing. One feller put on my drawers, and I 
found his under the house full of body lice. 

I moved my family a few days before the battle right 
across the hill to my father-in-law's. I did n't want to be at 
home. The Yankees was camped thick as blackbirds all 
around my place, and things looked too scarey thar. 

On Saturday morning, April 5th, some of their cavalry- 
men stopped at my father-in-law's and said they was 
thirsty and hungry, and we gave 'em water and food. 
Then they went along, and they'd hardly got out of sight 
in the next holler when two Confederates spurred up to the 
gate and wanted to know if any Yankees had been thar. 
"Yes, and they've jist gone," I said. 

Whichever side come to me for information I told the 



A Battlefield Farmer 73 

truth and did n't hide anything. Northern or Southern, 
they was alike to me. I was n't nary one of 'em. 

The Confederates asked which way the Yankees went, 
and I replied, "They went down the hill." 

The men questioned me some more and found out I'd 
been livin' inside of the Union lines, and then they said, 
"You come along with us." 

Thar was two of 'em, and I did n't have a gun, so I 
could n't do anything but go. They went straight to the 
head man, Sidney Johnston, and lit off their horses. 
They'd been out scouting, and one of 'em said to the 
general, "We've brought you a man who's been in the 
Yankee camps." 

Johnston wanted to know how things looked thar, and I 
said: "The Yankees' battle line stretched out in the woods 
so far I could n't see any end to it. Their tents made as 
pretty a city as I ever looked at." 

"Have they got any rifle-pits out?" he asked. 

"No, I did n't see any," I told him. 
. "Do you know the country back hyar?" he said. 

I told him I did, and he sent me off to show his men some 
roads that was n't so muddy as the main roads. In about 
an hour by the sun I got back to Johnston, but they did n't 
let me leave till it was gittin' dark. So I stopped that night 
at my Uncle Peter's on the other side of the creek from my 
father-in-law's. 

The battle began the next morning jist at daylight. I 
was already awake, but I was n't out of bed yet. As soon as 
I could git to the stable I saddled up, and I 'd ridden down 
as far as the creek when the first cannon was fired. An old 
turkey gobbler answered it. Another cannon fired, and he 
gobbled again, and that was what he did every time till 



74 Shiloh 

they was firing so fast he could n't keep up. Then he got 
ashamed of himself and quit. 

About that time some Confederate soldiers caught me, 
and they did n't turn me loose till ten o'clock. When I was 
free I hurried to whar my family was and I found a world 
of soldiers around the house. An officer said to me: "You 
git the women and children out. Thar's liable to be a fight 
hyar." 

I decided to take 'em to Squire Greer's, a mile above, and 
I was on the way when some troops stopped me. Their 
colonel said, "We want you to pilot us across to whar 
they're fightin'." 

But I told him, " I got to take these women and children 
to a house up hyar a little ways." 

"All right," he said, "take 'em along, and then come 
back." 

I did n't have no notion to go back, and after I got to 
Squire Greer's me 'n' my family — every one — went on 
down in the swamp. We found a dry place to sit on, and 
we stayed thar that day. None of us older ones e't any din- 
ner, but I expect my wife had brought along something for 
the children so they did n't go hungry. 

I might perhaps have got some idea of how the battle 
was goin' by climbin' a tree, but I did n't want to be seen. 
We was n't a quarter of a mile from Squire Greer's black- 
smith's shop. He was busy shoein' the soldiers' horses as 
fast as he could shoe, but every half hour, or as often 
as he got news of the battle, he'd come whar we was to 
report. 

Thar was a continual roar of small arms and cannon all 
day long, and I could tell by the sound that the Yankees 
was bein' pushed back to the last jump-off. That suited 



A Battlefield Farmer 75 

me well enough. I did n't care which side whipped, and 
I was n't anxious except to see the thing closed out. I jist 
wanted to git 'em to quit. That was what I was after. I 
did n't want no war. 

In the evenin', about sundown, after the firin' had 
stopped, I tuck my family up to Squire Greer's, and we 
spent the night thar. He had plenty of beds, and I slept 
tolerably good. 

I waked up about day and went to my father-in-law's 
house. Things looked pretty bad thar. Under a big oak 
tree in the yard lay a man flat on his back with a blanket 
over him, and I pulled the blanket up enough to see that he 
was dead. The house was full of wounded men, and dead 
men was piled up in the little hall jist like hogs. You see 
perhaps the wounded wouldn't more'n git thar in the 
ambulances than they was dead, and I reckon the hall was 
a convenient place to pile their bodies. The bullets was 
fiyin' thick thar for a part of the day, and a cannon ball 
had knocked off the chimney, and a good many trees and 
limbs were shot off. Thar was blood everywhar all over 
the place. Hit was most too much for me, but by the end 
of the week I got so hardened to such things I could have 
eaten my dinner off a dead man. 

Thar was n't no doctor at my father-in-law's that Mon- 
day — nary a one — and the first thing I done I waited on 
the wounded men the best I could. I give 'em some water 
which I carried around to 'em in a canteen. Afterward I 
cooked bacon and cornbread for 'em. The armies was 
fightin' again and I could hear the cannon very plain, but 
it had begun to rain, and the drops a-spottin' the house 
made so much noise I could n't hear the smallarms. About 
two o'clock the Confederates formed a line of battle right 



76 Shiloh 

through the yard. I tuck that as a notice to leave, and 
I went to whar my family was stayin'. 

On the first day of the battle the Confederates captured 
everything the Fed-erals had in their encampment. They 
drew the things back two or three miles, but the next day, 
when they retreated, they had to abandon 'em. So they 
broke the flour barrels, and they piled up the tents and 
guns and touched a match to 'em to destroy 'em. But thar 
was stuff that they did n't have time to destroy scattered 
all along the road with dead men and dead horses and 
mules lyin' about. On Chuesday thar was n't any soldiers 
on that part of the battlefield, and the people come from all 
around and gathered up as much as they could carry off. 
In places thar was great piles of bacon, and I heard of one 
family that got enough of that bacon to do 'em the rest of 
the year. 

Hit had rained a-Monday night a big one, but Chuesday 
was tolerable pleasant, and I started about sun-up to go 
back to my father-in-law's. The creek was up and out of 
the banks in places, but I got over on a log. When I 
reached the house I found the wounded as thick as they 
could lie in thar. I could n't hardly git around among 'em, 
and thar was nobody to care for 'em except one soldier. Jist 
as I was makin' ready to give 'em somethin' to eat a troop 
of Federal cavalry come and wanted me to pilot 'em. I told 
'em I could n't go because I had to cook for the wounded, 
and besides I had no horse. 

"Yes, you can go, too," they said. "We'll have men to 
take care of the wounded, and we'll furnish you a horse." 

So I had to go along, and I was with 'em all day. We 
went up the road a piece and they marched into an old 
field. Some of us stayed behind on the edge of it, and the 



A Battlefield Farmer 77 

rest galloped on across and in among the trees beyond. 
But in a few minutes back they come out of the woods, offi- 
cers and men all mixed up together, and the Rebels drivin' 
'em. 

I spoke to those I was with and said: "What in the 
world have you fellers got me out hyar for? I ain't no 
fighter." 

A major who was right next to me says, "That beats 
anything I ever see." 

They fought in that old field, and I looked on. Over a 
hundred men were killed thar, and the wagons ran till deep 
dark bringin' back the wounded. Hit was way in the night 
that I reached my father-in-law's house. A soldier come 
with me. I was ridin' a powerful big horse, and this soldier 
went off with it and his, too. He ran away with 'em. I 
found that out the next day when his colonel come to the 
house and asked, " Whar is that horse you rode yesterday?" 

I said, "Your man tuck him away." 

"If you don't bring me that horse we'll have to hang 
you," he said. 

"Well," I says, "git your rope and go to work. I can't 
bring you the horse." 

He did n't talk any more about hangin', but advised me 
to move across the river. 

I said, "I've stood it this far hyar, and I'm goin' to 
tough it out." 

Later that day me'n' a Yankee doctor went down to my 
farm. The cotton gin had been burned with about forty 
thousand pounds of cotton seed and enough cotton that 
was in the lint room to make three bales. The doctor 
picked up a piece of shell, and he said a bomb had burst in 
the gin-house and set it on fire. But a soldier told me that 



78 Shiloh 

he was lyin' in the lint room wounded when a big, red- 
complected man come in and tuck him out. The next thing 
he knew the gin was on fire. I had a neighbor who was jist 
sich a man as he'd described, and this neighbor had told 
me if I did n't burn the gin the Confederates would do so 
to keep the Yankees from gittin' the cotton. Hit 's my 
guess that he set the fire, but I could n't prove it. 

My house was used as a hospital during the battle. The 
surgeons worked thar, and the arms and legs that they 
cut off was buried in a great pit near the back door. After 
the wounded was all carried away the soldiers tore the 
house down and left the pieces scattered around. 

I had 'bout thirty acres in wheat, and the wheat was 
already headed. I 'd put a lot of work into it, and when I 
was ploughin' in the seed I had often kept goin' till ten 
o'clock at night. The cavalrymen tied their horses all 
through the field to stakes that they set as close together as 
they could and not have the horses kick each other, and 
those horses had e't off the wheat and stomped it down so 
I never got nary a bit. 

Before the battle I had twenty-four head of nice hogs, 
and I only saw one afterward, and that was crippled. Hit 
was done shot, but they did n't git it. They killed the rest 
of 'em and cut off their heads, and threw the heads down in 
the well. I looked and I could see the noses and years 
stickin' up out of the water. Hit was fine water, but I ain't 
never tried it since. Yes, they got my hogs, but plague it 
all! you could n't blame soldiers for killin' hogs. 

I had a cow and a calf, and the cow ran off over on Lick 
Creek. The timber was budding out a little, and she went 
whar she could git some buds. But the soldiers caught her, 
and they kept her in camp about a week and milked her. 



A Battlefield Farmer 79 

Then she got away, and I found her with twelve feet of 
grass rope on her horns. So I knew she'd been tied up. 
Her calf had done starved to death at home. 

My mare run away and went up whar she was raised, 
and before I could go after her another army passed 
through and she disappeared for good. 

One of the wounded men at my father-in-law's had been 
hit by a cannon ball in the ankle so his foot was jist hangin'. 
He was shot Sunday, and he did n't git no medical atten- 
tion till Thursday. Then the doctors cut his leg off just 
above the knee, and I tuck his leg and foot and buried 'em 
in the garden. The man said he was a flag-bearer, and that 
the soldiers always shot at the flag-bearers mo' than at 
others. One day I noticed a change had come over him, 
and I said to the doctor, "That man's a-dyin'." 

"Oh, no!" the doctor said, "he's gittin' along the best 
kind." 

But in a few minutes he was dead, and I and three Fed- 
eral soldiers carried him out in his blanket, each hold of a 
corner. We dug a pit 'bout two feet deep, lowered him into 
it, folded the blanket over him, and covered him up. His 
bones are thar yet out on the hillside. 

Some of those who was killed on the battlefield never 
had any graves dug. They lay whar they fell, and a little 
dirt was thrown over 'em. I saw sixteen Confederates lyin' 
flat on their backs side by side, and not a speck of digging 
was done except to git enough dirt to cover 'em out of 
sight. Lots of bodies had the dirt washed off 'em by rain, 
or the hogs rooted 'em out; and then the hogs and buz- 
zards and other varmints would devour 'em. The bones 
lay thar and sun-dried, and a heap of 'em was carried off by 
people who come hyar to look around. I saw a skull only 



80 Shiloh 

the other day that a man had found while ploughing. He 
had gathered it up and brought it in the house to keep for 
a show. Oh! I've seen lots of different bones in houses. 

When the last of the wounded were moved away from 
my father-in-law's 'bout the only food we had left was half 
a flour barrel of bolted meal. I went to the general for a 
pass to go to mill, but he would n't give me one. He did n't 
want to have me go outside of the Union lines. I told him 
I did n't see what I was goin' to do for something to eat. 

"Well," he said, "if we starve to death, you will, too. If 
we don't, you won't." 

I went back to the house, and I had n't been thar long 
when an old Irishman walked in and said, "Hyar's some 
bread the general sent." 

He had an armful of crackers — great big hard fellers. 
" I can't eat those things," I said, but he showed me how to 
soak 'em in hot water and fry 'em in fat, and they were good. 

All the chickens on the place had been sold or stolen 
except one rooster, and a soldier come to the door and 
wanted to buy him. 

" I tell you p'int blank you can't have him," I said, " I 'm 
goin' to keep him to crow for me"; and the soldier turned 
away. 

The same old, long-legged Irishman who brought me the 
hardtacks happened to be callin' on me, and a minute or 
two later he looked out of the window and said. "Thar's 
that man tryin' to ketch your rooster." 

He went to the door and said, " I'll shoot you down right 
thar if you don't let that chicken alone." 

Of course the feller quit chasin' the rooster then and 
went about his business. I could n't ask for a better friend 
than that Irishman was. 




A RELIC OF THE OLD BATTLE 



A Battlefield Farmer 81 

In the North you taught your children that the Rebels 
were idiots and did n't have no mo' sense than to kill little 
boys and girls"; and in the South we taught our children 
that the Yankees had horns. Well, that did for talk, and 
talk 's cheap. I know I struck some as clever fellers in the 
Yankee army as I ever met in my life. Really, you can't 
git as many men together as thar is in an army but thar'U 
be some mean ones and some good ones. 

The soldiers found out that I could cook, and they brang 
me their bakin' powder and corn meal and salt, and I'd 
bake 'em corn bread to halves. Then one of the officers 
asked me if I could wash, and I told him, "Yes." 

So they brang me their fine shirts and drawers and stock- 
ings, and I done washing. By that time I 'd got my family 
thar. I washed all day long as hard as I could, and my old 
woman would starch and iron. We had all we could tend 
to, and we was paid in gold. 

But after a while the last of the army got away, and we 
moved out on the creek. I spent the summer hunting squir- 
rels and turkeys. We had a little bit of a split-log house we 
stayed into, and the next year I rented some land and 
raised a crop of corn. 

I was always afraid the recruiting officers would ketch 
me, and I'd be conscripted. I slept out a couple of nights 
to avoid 'em. Hit was in October, and I carried along some 
bed quilts and found a dry place under a tree and slept fine. 
People who knowed me did n't want to interrupt me be- 
cause I made shoes for 'em and water vessels, chums, and 
tubs. 

A cousin of mine slept out till he was wild as a buck. He 
and two other fellers hid together in the woods all the time 
of the war. They had blankets, and they'd move about 



82 Shiloh 

from one swamp to another, and in bad weather they would 
slip to some old waste house to sleep. I reckon they 
sponged most of their food, but they made a little com crop 
every year, and they shot some game that they 'd cook over 
a fire among the trees. In the daytime they'd mostly jist 
lie in their nest, but one of 'em would keep on the watch for 
any soldiers or conscripters who might come in. 

I was n't as lucky as they was. One day, in the fall of 
'63, the conscripters caught me, and they kept me in the 
army a couple of months. Then I got a slow fever. I had a 
brother in the army, and he brought me home, and I was 
never out of the house until the next March. By that time 
I was able to work a little. I expected to be ordered back 
to my regiment, but the summons did n't come, and I 
stayed on and on and got the crops laid by. I 'd jist finished 
when a mule throwed me and broke my arm. After that 
the army had no use for me. 

The guerillas got to be kind o' troublesome late in the 
war. They was mostly Confederates, and they'd a heap 
rather rob a Republican than a Democrat, but none of us 
was safe. A few of the Yankee deserters joined the guerilla 
bands. I reckon some of those fellers may be livin' yet, and 
if they are I'll be bound they're drawin' pensions, the same 
as all the other Northern soldiers. 

Them guerillas was about as lawless a set as there was 
on the face of the earth. I knowed one old man who did n't 
have much sense, and they shot him off the fence whar he 
was settin', jist to see him die. 

I got into a nest of guerillas myself one evenin' down the 
river. Me 'n' my wife's brother, Hiram, was a-goin' across 
country on foot when we see a lot of cavalry, as we tuck it 
to be. Thar was six or eight or ten of 'em. They discovered 



A Battlefield Farmer 83 

us and turned to ride in our direction. That made Hiram 
anxious, and he wanted to run, but I would n't. 

"They'll git us shore," he said, "and I'm a-goin' to 
throw my pocket-book away." 

"I would n't do that," I said. "I don't think they are 
guerillas." 

They soon got to whar we was, and without gittin' off 
their horses they commenced gougin' their hands in our 
pockets. I could n't help bein' sort of skeered then. I 
did n't like their appearance. In my coat pocket I had a 
home-made twist of tobacco, and they got that. Thar was 
a three-dollar bill in my vest pocket, and it was every cent 
of money I had. They did n't happen to find that, and I 
was afraid they'd be so mad at not gittin' any money from 
me that they'd shoot me. 

But in a few minutes they rode off. Hiram had lost his 
pocket-book, and he said he wished he had not tuck my 
advice. We both went home after we got into that yaller- 
jacket's nest. 

The war left this region in pretty bad shape. Every farm 
had suffered, and Corinth, our market town, was tetotally 
wiped out. I jist went to work by the day. That war 
ruined me financially forever, and now that I'm old and 
can't work any mo' I don't know what's goin' to become 
of me. 

I think perhaps the last war will be fought within fifty 
years. I 've been readin' the Bible and watchin' the signs, 
and I believe the end of all time is near. Thar's a heap of 
fightin' right now across the big deep, and troubles are 
growin' on people jist as the Bible described it. "When ye 
shall see these things the end is nigh," the Bible says. 
" There shall be wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes " 



84 Shiloh' 

— we know those are hyar — "and pestilence and troubles 
of all kinds, and men shall grow worse and worse unto the 
end." Any man with two eyes ought to see that the state 
of things at present is like what the Bible words describe. 

But some people claim that wars and famines and disas- 
ters don't indicate nothing in partickerler. They say that 
human bein's are multiplyin' so fast that the world can't 
hold 'em, and it's necessary to have some means to destroy 
and thin 'em out. That sort of argument only shows their 
ignorance. They think the world is jist the same size now 
as it always has been and always will be. But they're 
wrong. Thar's mo' foolish ideas about creation than about 
anything else. The world ain't over-populated and never 
will be. It's growin' in size as fast as the people increase in 
number. 

I dug wells in my young days. Once I went down nine- 
teen feet through as pretty earth as I ever saw and found 
some blue mud that had a hickory log in it with the bark 
on. I've dug a well sixty-three foot deep and found clam 
shells down thar. All that earth has formed over those 
places since the trees and the clams was alive. 

That makes me say the world grows, and I shore ain't 
afraid it will be over-crowded — no, sir, not a bit of it. If 
God created the world in the first place He can easy make 
it twice as large to take care of the people. 



IX 

The Refugees ^ 

I WISH my old man was hyar to visit with you. He suffered 
a great deal in the war, and he'd rather talk about it than 
eat. Those was powerful troublesome times — scarey 
times. Me 'n' him was young folks then with a little family 
of three or four children. We did n't live in this country 
hyar. Our home was fifteen mile up the river. He 'd went 
into the Rebel army, but early in 1862 he come home on a 
furlough. I s'pose he stayed two months. I ain't certain. 
You see that's a long time for a person old as I am to 
ricolect. I 'm goin' on eighty now. 

His captain come and wanted him to go back into the 
army and would have rushed him right down hyar where 
they was about to have a fight. My old man said he would 
go, but he did n't say when he was a-goin' — he did n't tell 
him that at all. "Fanny," he said to me afterward, "I've 
made up my mind to see my father and mother once more 
while I'm a-livin'." 

1 She was fleshy and elderly. Her home was a primitive, white- 
washed log dwelling on the battlefield about a quarter of a mile from 
the river. Now and then, as we sat in the kitchen talking of the long- 
gone war days, she would pause in her reminiscences to refresh herself 
with some snuff from a tin spice box. She swabbed it up on the frayed 
end of a slender stick, put the snuff end of the stick in her mouth, and 
there the stick stayed with the other end protruding. After she had 
absorbed a satisfying amount of the snuff she put the stick back in the 
box and spit tobacco juice into a wooden box of sawdust on the floor 
with a persistence and precision_that would have done credit to a mas- 
culine expert. 



86 Shiloh 

Their home was somewhere near four miles from ourn, I 
reckon. He started, and he was ridin' slowly along when he 
saw a sight of men down the road on horses — awful large 
horses. The men was all dressed in blue, and the first thing 
he knew they charged right up to him and said, "Throw 
up your hands, sir." 

They asked him where he was a-goin', and where he 
lived, and what was his name, and he told 'em. Then they 
wanted to know if he was a Rebel soldier. Well, there was 
no use to deny it. 

" Do you want to go back to the Rebel army? " they asked. 

He said he did n't want to go back if he could help him- 
self. So they asked him to take the oath of religion, I be- 
lieve they called it. He taken that all right, and they wrote 
him a great long paper and turned him loose and told him 
to go where he pleased. They did n't order him to join the 
Union army because they had plenty of good drilled people, 
and he was n't. 

He went on and seen his father and mother, and then he 
come back home and bid me good-by. Hit was his inten- 
tion to go right straight hyar to be near the Yankee army 
and keep out of the way of the Rebels gittin' him. He come 
down the river in a bateau with some other men, and when 
they got nearly hyar they landed on the opposite bank. 
The next day the battle begun. My old man was on yon 
side of the river scouting that morning when he heard some 
men hollerin' to him from this side. The Rebels had house- 
pitals above Pittsburg Landing, and there was a sight of 
sick folks in them housepital camps. Several of the sick 
men had come out on the river bank. They wanted to git 
out of the way of the fightin', and they hollered, "Come 
over hyar and git us with them boats there." 



The Refugees 87 

My husband, he thought so much of the pore sick folks 
that he went right into a boat and started to row across — 
and them armies a-fightin' there. About middle ways of 
the river was a gunboat throwin' shells over into the woods, 
and the men on it hollered at him, "Halt!" 

Well, he just stopped rowin' and floated down onto the 
gunboat, and the men reached their hands and pulled him 
in. He was n't scared, for he knowed they would n't jump 
on him and beat him to death, but so many were blobbin', 
blobbin' to him that he did n't have no sense. They were all 
private men, and they kept jabbering to him till an officer 
came and told 'em to go set down. This officer was the 
head man, and my husband showed him his papers and told 
him what he was doin'. 

"You can take that little craft of yours," the officer said, 
"and go git those men there. Take 'em over to the other 
bank and report back." 

My husband went, and tuck the men across to yon side. 
Then he rowed to the gunboat, and the gunboat men 
helped him on board. "Hyar's that same man," they said 
to the commander. 

"Yes, I know he is," the commander said, "I recognize 
his coimtenance." 

Then he said to my husband: "Don't git away from the 
river. These are terrible times right now." 

He gave him a pass to go on shore, and ordered him to 
report back there the next morning. That night my hus- 
band went to his Uncle Tom's about two mile back from 
the other side of the river, and early the next day he re- 
turned to the gunboat and asked the captain could he come 
out hyar on the battlefield. The captain said he could, and 
he done so. He knowed he was in danger, but he had a 



88 Shiloh 

brother in the Rebel army, and he wanted to look and see 
if he'd been killed or hurt. 

My old man did n't find his brother, though he seen 
many others that he knowed among the dead and crippled. 
He tried to pick up and tote the wounded, but he could n't 
stand the blood and the scent, and the groans, and the 
hollerin' for water. That was what hurt him. Hit made him 
sick, and for quite a while he was n't able to sleep at night 
for imaginin' he heard the cries of those wounded men. 

He went back to his uncle's, and after the battle, when 
things was sort of settled up, he brought me down there. 
Aunt Mary had butter and milk and eggs and chickens, and 
he peddled 'em to the soldiers. Oh law! the soldiers was 
great hands for such things. He ran a ferryboat, too, and 
carried across a sight of people and wagons and horses. 
We was used to skiffs and boats, for we was raised beside 
the river just like a duck. My husband had a man to help 
him run the boat in the daytime. One of 'em pulled with 
the great long paddles, and the other steered. I 've guided 
the boat a-many a time on a moonshiny night. I 'd leave 
the littlest children with the biggest and go to help. 

My husband got some land and made a fine crop. Hit 
was bottom land, and he raised mighty good corn. Some- 
times he'd go off down the river, and he'd bring back sich 
things as cloth, pepper, and especially coffee and salt. You 
could n't hardly git salt at all them times. Thar was 
nothin' hyar, and he was tryin' to help people all he could. 
He bought cheap and sold high, and he was makin' money. 

We was prosperin', but my old man taken a flux hyar 
because he had to drink the river water. He like to have 
died of fever and chills. So the next season we moved to 
Corinth, and there the old man had yaller jaundice. Hit 



The Refugees 89 

like to have killed him, and we did lose one child. Corinth 
was full of Northern soldiers, and it was sich a nasty place 
they was a-goin' to vacate. Yes, Corinth was powerful 
sickly for 'em. 

We did n't like it any better than they did, and we 
moved seventeen mile to Purdy. About a dozen families 
went at the same time. Hit was March, and the coldest 
kind of weather, and there was awful deep mud. We was 
three days on the road. Often a wagon would stick in the 
mud, and we'd have to pry it out, or double up teams and 
pull it out. At night we 'd camp in the woods and make log- 
heap fires to cook by and warm us. We slept in the wagons. 
Our horses was tied to the wheels or the trees. A robber 
come into our camp and stole a horse one night. We'd 'a' 
lost a good deal more, I reckon, if we had n't had dogs 
along to git after people and drive 'em off. 

At Purdy the only building we could git to live in was a 
little old blacksmith's shop. It was pretty cold weather to 
stay in that old shop, but we stuck in there for three or four 
months. The building had only a dirt floor, and you 
could n't say anything good about such a floor except that 
the wind did n't come up through. Yes, the old plank * 
blacksmith shop had a tight floor, and that was the only 
tight thing about it. 

While we was livin' in that shop my old man was sick of 
the diptheria. He had it bad, too, and like to have died. 
We moved again and went to Savannah on the Tennessee 
River near where we lived when the war begun. The doctor 
there waited on the old man about two years before he got 
well. He was sick all that time, but he was able to work 

1 The word "plank" as used in the South is equivalent to "board" 
as understood in the North. 



90 Shiloh 

some, and he tried to make a crop in the fields right around 
the house. 

We had a sight of trouble with the guerillas while we was 
livin' in Savannah. They run in there two or three times a 
week, and they'd whip people and they'd burn up a heap 
of things for spite. Yes, what they could n't carry off 
they'd throw in the fire just from meanness. They was 
powerful folks to drink and was always wantin' whiskey. 
If they could n't git whiskey they'd drink vinegar, and 
vinegar got so gone people hardly ever had any. We put 
ourn in jugs and hid it so those fellers would n't git it. 
They'd come in and take all our food, and at last we 'lowed 
to keep only one meal ahead. 

If there was a skirmish with the guerillas anywhere 
around, all the men in the place, except the very old ones, 
would run and git out of the way and hide hyar and yonder. 

Part of the guerillas was Rebels and part was Yankees. 
Sometimes they'd fight each other, and sometimes they'd 
git friendly and go together. I suppose we would n't have 
had guerillas if it had n't been for the war, but this war 
never made all the rogues. Some were rogues afore, I guess, 
though I don't doubt the war give many a one a big start 
in roguery who did n't work for it. 

We was n't afraid of the regular soldiers, for we knew 
they was n't a-goin' to hurt us. But it was different with 
the guerillas. We dare n't open our doors on a dark night 
because maybe a robber or somethin' would be standin' 
out there, and we dare n't talk above a whisper hardly. 
The whole country was alive with them guerillas, and 
they'd be about and hear you when you did n't see 'em. 

One day we looked out of the window just at nightfall, 
and there was a party of guerillas off in the distance comin' 



The Refugees 91 

along the road. My old man had bought him a new pair of 
shoes a short time before. We was mighty pore folks, and 
he said, "Fanny, I believe I'll put those shoes on or they'll 
take 'em." 

So he sat down and put 'em on, and by that time nine of 
the guerillas was in the house. Two of the village men who 
was settin' in the next house jumped up and run out of the 
back door through the briers and one thing another, and 
the guerillas shot at 'em. Then the guerillas went from our 
house over to that one, and my old man said: "I expect 
those old mean men will come back hyar. So give me a 
couple of quilts and I'll go lay out for to-night." 

He took the quilts, and I did n't see him again till the 
next day. It was a cle'r, pretty night, and he slept in a 
cotton patch under a big persimmon bush. 

Them robbers bolted in soon after he left. They was 
dressed in black and armed with pistols. " We know you 've 
got some money hyar," they said, "and we're goin' to have 
it or burn the house." 

"Well," I says, "burn the house, if you want to." 

But I was scared so bad I just went and got the bucket 
of water I'd hid the money in and handed it to the head 
robber. There was ten dollars in silver, and I said, "If the 
money '11 do you any good take it and leave." 

He put his hand down in the bucket and got the money. 
My old man had a rifle gun hanging up in a rack, and he 
thought a heap of it. Well, one of the robbers took that 
gun down and bent the barrel and broke the stock. 

Then he goes off and the others with him to the next 
house. The only people there were old Mr. Webb and his 
wife, and they were cripples who could n't walk to do no 
good. One of the robbers put his pistol to the old man's 



92 Shiloh 

breast and said, "I want that money you're takin' care of 
for your neighbor." 

My husband thought they wouldn't trouble the old man, 
and he 'd given him his pocketbook. But they knowed he 'd 
done it, and they made Mr. Webb hand the pocketbook 
over to 'em. 

They went to another house and took a young feller and 
hung him to an apple tree till he was black in the face. 
They was pretty near drunk, and that was their way of 
makin' the feller's folks pay 'em money. His mother gave 
'em two dollars, and they hung him again till she gave 
'em five dollars. 

They stopped at every house in the neighborhood, and 
by and by they went to Mr. Owens' and hollered to him to 
open the door, and he did so. "We want you to give up 
that fifty-dollar bill you've got," they said. 

"Well, I won't do it," he told 'em, and shut the door 
and would n't let 'em in. 

It was gittin' daylight, and they started off, but before 
they was out of the yard they got into some dispute and 
began shootin', and one of the robbers was killed. The next 
day it rained one of the hardest rains you ever saw, and 
that dead robber was lyin' there with his brains droppin' 
out of a bullet hole in his head. My old man said, "I'd 
throw him out of the yard and let the hogs eat him, only it 
might poison 'em he was so mean." 

We could n't leave him there, and we dug a grave. Hit 
was n't fur away, and it was n't very deep. Then we tuck 
him and rolled him into an old box and tied some lines to 
the box and drug it to the grave and buried him. 

Well, that's the way things went in that old war, and we 
did n't have any comfort until it was over. 



X 

The Hired Man.^ 

This village, where I 'm livin' now, is right on the southern 
edge of the battlefield, and it 's only two or three miles from 
the Potomac. Back in war time it had twelve hundred 
inhabitants. 

Lee had been winnin' some victories in Virginia that 
made him think he could whip any army the Federals could 
get together to oppose him. So early in the autumn of 1862 
he crossed the Potomac and called on the people of Mary- 
land to rally to his standard. But they did n't rally worth 
a cent. Most of us favored the other side. It wa' n't long 
before Lee and the Yankees come to grips. They met on 
the hills hyar, where the battle was fought on September 
17th. It took its name from Antietam Creek, which, at the 
beginning of the fight was between the two armies. 

Some of the hottest fighting was done around a Dunkard 
church, out north of the town on the Hagerstown Pike. 
Three quarters of a mile farther on, right out on that same 
pike, was where I lived. I was twenty-two years old. I 'd 
been raised by a man by the name of Jacob Nicodemus, 
and I was still workin' for him. He had a log house with 

1 I was at Sharpsburg, a very picturesque old place in a region of 
flowing hills and quaint farmhouses. The hired man and I spent an 
evening together in one of the village homes. There was a piano in the 
room, and the grizzled old man drew the piano stool up by the stove 
and sat there bolt upright telling his story and chuckling over its 
humorous and unusual phases. 



94 Antietam 

two rooms downstairs and just a sort of loft divided by a 
partition up above. There was what we called a bat-house 
with a couple of bedrooms in it attached to the rear like a 
shed. In winter we used a room in the house for a kitchen, 
but in summer the kitchen was in another building off a 
little piece from the house. We had one of these old Ger- 
man barns with a roof that had a long slant on one side and 
a short slant on the other. The roof was thatched with rye 
straw. 

At the time of the battle we 'd thrashed our rye and oats, 
but our wheat was standing in stacks beside the farmyard. 
Our corn was on the stalk in the field, and there was sixteen 
acres of it. 

We had 'bout a dozen large hogs and mebbe eighteen or 
twenty pigs that run with their mammy yet in the fields 
and woods. We never penned any of 'em up till after we'd 
done seedin' wheat. Even our fattening hogs did n't get 
any feed till after that time. Ourn was a pretty good breed 
of hogs. Up in the mountains they had razor-backs. Them 
razor-backs looked like two slabs off a log put together, and 
they would n't weigh more'n' a hundred and fifty dressed. 
But the meat was good, and they were all right if you 
had enough of 'em. They were so wild that the owners 
would n't see 'em sometimes hardly for a month. The 
mountains were full of these hyar wild sweet potato roots, 
and the hogs would eat those roots, and they'd eat chest- 
nuts and acorns and would come home fat in the fall. 

We had quite a few cattle. I suppose there was over 
twenty head — countin' steers and everything together, 
you know. 

There was six horses on our place and not one of 'em 
but what we could both work and ride. All the people 



The Hired Man 95 

round had good ridin' horses then — lopers, rackers, and 
pacers. There wa' n't no buggies much. Horseback ridin' 
was the go of the day. Men and women, too, would travel 
anywhere on their horses. Ridin' was healthy and it was 
fun. The country people would take a ride to town, and 
the town people would take a ride to the country. The 
young ladies had their horses brought out as regular as 
clockwork, and they wa' n't afraid of a little mud. If they 
come to a wet place in the road they'd try to see who could 
do the most splashing. They wore great long skirts that 
would almost touch the ground, and they looked much 
better than ladies do on horseback now. Sometimes three 
or four of 'em would ride up in the mountains among the 
bushes to get flowers, and when they come back the horses 
would be so trimmed up with laurel and honeysuckle you 
could n't tell what color they were. 

On the Sunday before the battle of Antietam the Feder- 
als and Confederates fit over hyar on South Mountain. 
We could hear the guns, but we could n't figure out what 
was goin' on, and thinks I, "Dog-gone it! I'll go and see 
this fightin'." 

So two or three of us young fellers started. We went 
afoot 'cross the fields to Keedysville and then to Boonsboro, 
a matter of five or six miles in all. As we went along we 
kept pickin' up recruits till there was a dozen of us. A 
hotel man in Boonsboro spoke to us and said, "You 
fellers '11 get right in the fight and be killed if you keep 
on." 

But we was nosey and wanted to nose in. We wa' n't 
afraid, and we'd 'a' went till we heard the bullets whistle 
if we had n't met a wounded soldier. He 'd been shot in 
his hand, and he told us the troops was hot at it up there 



96 Antietam 

on the mountain. So we thought we'd let well enough 
alone, and we went back home. 

We expected there was goin' to be another battle, but we 
did n't know where or when it would be fought. Nobody- 
was a-workin' the next day. They was ridin' around to find 
out what was goin' to happen. By afternoon the Rebel 
army was gettin' into position on the south side of Antie- 
tam Creek. Some of the troops was posted off on the edge 
of our farm, and I went over where they was and walked 
right up and talked with the pickets. None of 'em did n't 
offer to do me no harm. They asked me for some tobacker. 
I had a right good plug in my pocket, and I divided it up 
among 'em. They took it all, and they chewed and spit and 
felt pretty good. An officer lent me his glasses, and I could 
see the Union army maneuvering over on the hills beyond 
the creek. By and by, while I was layin' there talkin' to the 
pickets, a shell landed in a fence 'bout thirty yards from 
me. I 'd never seen no battle nor no war, and I was scared, 
and I said, "Ain't you fellers afraid?" 

"Oh, no!" they said, "a shell has to come closer than 
that to make us afraid." 

But I got up and says I, "Good-by, boys, I'm goin' to 
take care of my horses." 

I went to the house, and a feller named Hines helped me 
bridle 'em up. Then he mounted one, and I mounted an- 
other, and we each led two and rode eight miles north to 
the place of a farmer we knew. We shut the horses up in his 
bam and stayed there that night. 

The next day I set out to walk home, but when I got 
most to our farm the pickets would n't let me pass, and I 
had to return the same way I 'd come. While I was gone my 
horses had been stolen. Hines seen the Union soldiers 



The Hired Man 97 

takin' 'em, and he heard 'em braggin' how much they was 
goin' to get for 'em. He went to the fellers, and, says he, 
"Them there belongs to a farmer down near Sharpsburg"; 
but they took 'em just the same. 

Hines said that the fellers belonged to the command of 
Cap'n Cowles who was stationed at Williamsport, three or 
four miles away. I follered 'em right up and Hines went 
along with me. We found Cap'n Cowles and told him what 
had happened. 

"Well," he said, "come with me to the corral where we 
keep our horses, and if you see yourn there, take 'em." 

We found 'em, and the soldiers stood around and looked 
at us pretty hard while we rode off with 'em. 

There was some cannonadin' and fightin' on Tuesday, 
and they were at it again the next day at sunrise and fought 
pretty savage way on into the night. They tell me that 
was the bloodiest day in American history. More than 
twenty- three thousand men was killed or wounded. Dur- 
ing the night Lee got away across the Potomac. It had 
been only two weeks since he started north with an army of 
fifty thousand, but he lost so heavily in the battle and by 
straggling that he went back with scarcely half that number. 

On Thursday morning I walked home. None of the fam- 
ily was there. The soldiers had taken the children and the 
old man and old woman off the battlefield before day on 
Wednesday. The house was full of wounded Northern 
soldiers, and the hogpen loft was full, and the barn floor. 
The wounded was crowded into all our buildings. 

I looked around to find something to eat, but there 
wa' n't enough food in the house to feed a pair of quail. 
We 'd left fifty pounds of butter in the cellar and seventy- 
five pounds of lard and twenty gallons of wine — fine 



98 Antietam 

grape wine — and half a barrel of whiskey. We had just 
baked eight or ten loaves of bread the day before, and pies, 
and I don't know what else. Those things was all gone. So 
was every piece of bacon from the smoke-house. When the 
family went away there was the big end of a barrel of flour 
in the house, and I reckon the soldiers had used half of it in 
making shortcakes. They'd mixed up flour and lard and 
water in a tin that we called a washall — we washed dishes 
in it — and they'd rolled the cakes out thin and greased 
the whole top of the cookstove and baked 'em on that. 
After bakin' a cake on one side they'd take a-hold of it and 
turn it over to bake the other side. I did n't hardly know 
the stove when I come home. 

We had four geese and 'bout sixty chickens, and the sol- 
diers got 'em all except one hen. She was settin' under the 
woodpile, and with all that thunderin' and crackin' goin' 
on she kept settin'. Tears to me that was providential. 
The Lord seen fit to let us have some chickens. She had 
seventeen eggs, and every one hatched. We did n't know 
she was there till she come out with the chickens; and they 
all lived. I never see chickens grow so fast in my life. We 
had n't no time to tend to 'em, and the hen raised 'em 
herself. 

The soldiers had done their chicken-killin' in the room 
where we had our winter kitchen. They'd taken the dough 
scraper and put it on a chicken's neck and hit it a whack 
with the rollin'-pin, and that rollin'-pin was all bruised up. 
They were dirty butchers, and the floor was ankle deep 
easy with heads and feet, entrails and feathers. It just 
happened that they could n't cook in there or they'd have 
burnt the house up, I reckon. The stove was in the summer 
kitchen. 



The Hired Man 99 

What we called our cellar was a large cave, 'bout fifteen 
yards from the house, with a ten by twelve log buildin' 
settin' on it. The buildin' had been made for a shop, but 
we 'd repaired it up and plastered it, and we kept our parlor 
furniture in it. If we had visitors of a Sunday we invited 
'em in there to set and talk. Our best chairs was in there — 
mohair chairs with black, stuffed seats, — and a six-dollar 
lookin'-glass, mahogany finish, and a nice bed. It was a 
cord bed with the woodwork of sycamore all through, and 
it had two feather-beds, one to lay on, and one to cover you. 
There was two sheets of home-made linen, and these hyar 
old-time coverlids wove by the women on a loom, blue on 
one side and red on the other, with flowers of all kinds on 
'em. That was what you 'd call a fine bed in them days, and 
you could n't buy one like it now, with the pillows and 
bolsters and sich-like stuff on it, for one hundred dollars. 

A shell come in at the northeast corner of that buildin* 
and hit the bureau and took the top off and went out the 
southeast comer. Another shell went through the gable 
ends, and it struck the bed and knocked the headboard and 
footboard out and took the feathers and sheets and carried 
'em right along. 

The big house did n't escape either. A shell went 
through the roof and cattycornered across and went out the 
other side. Great large limbs were knocked off the trees, and 
sometimes the whole top of a tree had been carried away. 
Oh! the trees was knocked to pieces considerable. Yes, 
indeed ! 

Our wheatstacks was full of shells, and we picked 'em 
out while we was thrashing. There was grapeshots in the 
stacks too. We could n't see 'em, and they broke down the 
machine several times and made us a lot of expense. 



100 Antietam 

The soldiers stole a good many of our potatoes, which 
they dug out of the ground, but we still had enough to do 
us over the winter. We did n't get pay for anything except 
some hay and rye and oats and two colts. 

A good deal of our corn was broken down. The soldiers 
had two batteries right in the middle of it, but we got 
enough at the ends of the field to see us out the year. 

Our cattle strayed down in the woods by the river. I 
reckon they got wild at the noise and the sight of the troops 
and jumped out of their pasture. They did n't none of 'em 
get killed, but it was three or four days before we found 
'em. Our hogs went down by the river, too. Part of 'em 
come home after the battle, but some was shot. The 
soldiers took the hams off and let the rest of the carcass 
lay. More was wasted than was saved. 

Fully one third of the fences on our farm was gone. 
Some of the rails had been used to bum the dead horses, 
and the soldiers always took rails whenever they wanted a 
campfire to cook with. It was quite a job to make them 
rails, and quite a job to lay a fence up again. Yes, sir! 

On Friday morning I fetched our horses. I had n't seen 
the old man and old woman since the battle, but him and 
her got back that day. They did n't like the looks of things 
very much. The house had been looted. The dishes was 
gone, and we had no beds and no bed-clothing. There 
wa' n't a pillow in the house, and no sheets, no blankets, no 
quilts or coverlids. There was only bedticks — just them 
left. The soldiers had taken every stitch of mine and the 
old man's clothing, and they'd torn up the old woman's 
clothing and used it for bandages. We got gray-backs and 
bedbugs and everything on us, and the first thing we did 
was to renovate the house. It took us three weeks with 



The Hired Man' 101 

hire to get in shape. I never want to see no war no more. 
I 'd sooner see a fire. 

Thursday I had come on down half way to Sharpsburg 
to Bloody Lane, and I went all around as far as I had time 
to go. I saw a heap of dead men of both sides. The soldiers 
was buryin' 'em as fast as they could gather 'em together. 
They'd dig trenches 'bout six or seven feet wide and eigh- 
teen inches deep, and those trenches was dug right straight 
along a considerable distance unless the diggers come to a 
rock. Each dead man was first laid on a blanket, then put 
in the trench and the blanket spread over him, and there 
the bodies was buried side by side. The trenches was so 
shallow that after the loose dirt which was thrown back had 
settled down heads and toes sometimes stuck out. 

All over the fields the bodies was picked up, but those 
right around the buildings was left. I suppose the soldiers 
thought that the people who owned the buildings would 
bury the bodies to get rid of 'em. It was a warm Septem- 
ber. Yes, sir, some days was very hot, and we had to bury 
them bodies or stand the stench. By Saturday night I had 
all those on our place buried, but the smell hung on for a 
month, there was so many dead men and horses that was 
only half covered. The stench was sickening. We could n't 
eat a good meal, and we had to shut the house up just as 
tight as we could of a night to keep out that odor. We 
could n't stand it, and the first thing in the morning when 
I rolled out of bed I 'd have to take a drink of whiskey. If I 
did n't I 'd throw up before I got my clothes all on. 

I buried three bodies right behind our smokehouse, then 
four layin' at the back bam doors, and one near the well. 
A lane for our stock run through the middle of our farm, 
and I buried three in that lane, and I buried fifteen in a 



102 Antietam" 

corner of a field that we'd ploughed and got ready to seed. 
Those fifteen were government soldiers, and they were very 
near all Massachusetts men. The flesh of the dead men had 
discolored so they looked like they was black people, except 
one. He lay close by our well. He had a wound in his neck, 
and an army doctor who saw him said to me, "Judgin' 
from his looks and the len'th of time he's been layin' hyar, 
he must have bled all the blood he had in him." 

I took cotton and tied up my mouth and nose and dug a 
grave right where he was a-layin'. He was an awful big 
man, and that was the only thing I could do. Then I 
shoved a board under him and got him to rollin', and he 
went into the grave. I'd rather not have buried him so 
near the well, but the water wa' n't very good anyhow. In 
the heat of midsummer it seemed stagnant like, and we'd 
haul water from a neighbor's well, a bar'l or two at a 
time. 

'Bout a year later that body was dug up to put in the 
cemetery, and we found a pocket in the back of the man's 
coat up between his shoulder blades with a ten-dollar bill 
in it. But the bill was so rotten it fell to pieces, and we 
could n't make nothin' out of it, only on one comer we 
could see it was a government ten-dollar bill. All his other 
pockets was wrong side out, and that was the way with the 
pockets of every dead soldier I saw on the battlefield. 
They'd all been robbed. 

The battle made quite a change in the look of the coun- 
try. The fences and other familiar landmarks was gone, 
and you could n't hardly tell one man's farm from another, 
only by the buildings, and some of them was burnt. You 
might be out late in the day and the dark would ketch you, 
and things was so torn and tattered that you did n't know 



The Hired Man 103 

nothin'. It was a strange country to you. I got lost three 
or four times when I thought I could go straight home. 

Another queer thing was the silence after the battle. You 
could n't hear a dog bark nowhere, you could n't hear no 
birds whistle or no crows caw. There wa' n't no birds 
around till the next spring. We did n't even see a buzzard 
with all the stench. The rabbits had run off, but there was 
a few around that winter — not many. The farmers 
did n't have no chickens to crow. Ourn did n't commence 
for six months. When night come I was so lonesome that I 
see I did n't know what lonesome was before. It was a 
curious silent world. 



XI 

The Slave Foreman^ 

Well, sir, if I live to see the first day of May, I'll be 
eighty-one years old. I was thirty when the battle of An- 
tietam was fought. My home hyar in Sharpsburg is only 
about two miles from Calamus Run where I was born. 
When I was ten months old my mother and I was bought 
by Mr. Otto, who lived a little outside of the town down 
toward Antietam Creek, and I've worked for the Otto 
family ever since. 

My boss was a slaveholder. Yes, he belonged to that 
sec', but he was a good man to his black people. I '11 tell 
any one that. I was foreman on his place for twenty-odd 
years. His colored people lived in the same house the 
white people did, and they e't the same food as the white 
people did. But we had our table in the kitchen, and they 
had theirs in the dining-room. When I worked in harvest 
all day cradling wheat I was paid as much as anybody else, 
and if I went with the horses to do teaming for a neighbor 
the money for what I done was mine. That's the kind of a 
boss I had. There was not many like that — no, sir, not in 
this country. 

After emancipation his son said to me, "Now, Hilary, 

^ As I saw him he was a white-haired patriarch who lived in a log 
cabin on a narrow, uncared-for back lane. On the same lane were 
numerous other rude negro homes and a primitive little church. I 
visited with the old man in his dirty, odorous kitchen where he was 
working at a broom machine. 



The Slave Foreman 105 

you're your own man. Pap wants to hire you, but you can 
go and work wherever you please. If you decide to go away, 
and it happens that by and by you have nothin' to do, 
come back and make your home with us." 

I stayed there, and later, when I was draughted to be a 
soldier, my boss said, "Do you want to go?" and I told 
him, "No, sir." 

So me'n' him went to Frederick and he paid three hun- 
dred dollars to keep me out of the army. 

John Brown, at the time he was condemned to death, 
said, " You Southern people can hang me, but the cause I die 
for is goin' to win, and there '11 soon be a man hyar for every 
strand of hair I got in my head fightin' to free the slaves." 

That was the truth. There 's a good many strands of hair 
in a man's head, but a right smart of Union men left their 
homes to fight in the war. 

Early in the morning of the Monday before the battle of 
Antietam the Rebels come in hyar, and the hill at our place 
was covered with 'em. They'd walk right into the house 
and say, "Have you got anything to eat?" like they was 
half starved. 

We'd hardly fix up for a couple when a lot mo' would 
come in. The white people and my mother was in the 
kitchen givin' 'em bread and bacon. They was great fellers 
for milk, too. Some sat down at table, and some would just 
take a chunk of food in their hands. They e't us out 
directly. 

The Union troops, who come onto our place a few days 
later, was n't so hongry. That was the difference between 
the two armies. The Rebels was always hongry, and the 
men were miserable dirty. They certainly looked pretty 
rough. 



106 Antietam 

Monday night I went up to the village to see my wife 
who was workin' for a family there. She was skeered up a 
little but had n't got into no trouble. 

When I went back home the Rebels was sleepin' along 
the edge of the road same as a lot of hogs might. I stum- 
bled over some of 'em, but they did n't say anything. 
Their guns was laid aside, and they did n't know they had 
'em, I reckon. 

On Tuesday all the Otto family left and went down coun- 
try for safety. I stayed on the place. Once I fastened up 
the house tight and walked up in the field. By and by I 
had a feelin' that I 'd better go back, and I went. I found 
some one had broke a pane of glass in a window and 
reached in and took out the nail that kept the sash down. 
Then he'd raised the window and crawled in. Close by, 
inside of the room, was a washbench, and he 'd set a crock 
of preserves and a crock of flour on it ready to carry away. 
I took the things and put 'em where they belonged and 
started on the trail of the thief. It was easy follerin' him, 
for he left all the doors open which he went through. In the 
dining-room he 'd poured out a lot of sugar on a handker- 
cher to take along, and he'd gone into my old boss's room 
and strewed his papers around over the floor. Next he'd 
gone upsteps, and I went up 'em, too, and hyar he was in a 
little pantry. He was a Rebel soldier — a young feller — 
and not very large. I was skeered, but he was mo' skeered 
than I was — certainly he was; and I said, "You dirty 
houn' you, I have a notion to take you and throw you down 
those steps." 

Oh! I could have mashed him, for I saw he had no 
revolver. He did n't say anything. He left. I reckon I was 
too big for him.' 



The Slave Foreman 107 

" I 'm goin' to have a guard hyar befo' night," I said, and 
pretty soon an officer come down there and I told him how 
one of his men had been carryin' on after we'd give the 
soldiers so much to eat. So he sent three men with guns to 
guard the place. 

That evening the old boss come in and said, "General 
Toombs is goin' to be hyar over night, and he will be up to 
supper." 

"Who in the name of the Lord will get the supper?" I 
asked. 

"You and his waiter will have to get it some way or 
'nother," he said. 

Well, we fried some meat and made some biscuit, and the 
old general got his supper, but he did n't get no breakfast 
there. The firin' commenced so strong on Wednesday 
morning that he had to hurry to his post, and the waiter 
took his breakfast out to him. 

My boss went down in the country to get under the hill 
where they would n't shoot him. The shells soon begun 
flyin' over the house and around hyar, and while I was out 
in the yard there was one that 'peared like it went between 
our house and the next, and busted. I could see the blue 
blaze flyin', and I jumped as high as your head, I reckon. 
I 've ploughed up a many a shell in our fields since the bat- 
tle. You'd find 'em most anywheres. Often, I've broke 
'em in two. It'sa wonder I was n't killed. There was balls 
inside and brimstone and stuff. 

I did n't like those shells a-flyin', and I got on one of the 
horses and led some of the others and went off across the 
Potomac to the place of a man who was a friend of my boss. 
There I stayed all day listenin' to the cannon. 

Thursday I come home. Befo' I got there I began to see 



108 Antietam 

the Johnnies layin' along the road, some wounded and 
some dead. Men was goin' over the fields gatherin' up the 
wounded, and they carried a good many to our bam, and 
they'd pulled un threshed wheat from the mow and covered 
the floor for the wounded to lay on. In the barnyard I 
found a number of Rebels laid in our straw pile and I told 
'em the Yankees was comin' to ketch 'em. But they said 
that was what they wanted — then they'd get a rest. 

I was goin' over a stone wall on my way to the house, and 
there, leanin' against the wall was a wounded Yankee. I 
asked him when the Rebs left him. 

"Last night about twelve o'clock," he said. 

I asked him how they'd treated him, and he said: " They 
found me wounded, and I reckon they did the best they 
could, but that was n't much. They did n't have much to 
do with." 

For a while I carried water to the wounded in the barn, 
and then I went on to town. I wanted to see where my 
wife was, and after I found she had n't been hurt I felt 
considerable better. 

A week later the wounded was moved off our place to a 
camp hospital, and the family come home. The house, as 
well as the barn, had been used as a hospital, and what- 
ever had been left in it was gone. Besides, every bit of our 
hay and stuff had been taken to feed the army horses. 
We did n't lose any of our own horses, but the next year 
some Rebel raiders got 'em all except two blind ones. 



XII 

The Slave Woman at the Tavern^ 

I WAS the cook at Delaney's Tavern hyar in Sharpsburg 
when the battle was fought. That was a big time,^ yes, a 
big time, and I never want to see no such time again. 

The day befo' the battle the two armies was jest a-feelin' 
for one another. That was on a Tuesday. The Rebels was 
keepin' the Yankees back while mo' of their men was 
crossin' the Potomac. 

In the evenin' the tavern family was all in the kitchen 
when a young feller come in and asked for somethin' to eat. 
My old boss said: "We ain't got nothin' fo' our own selves. 
You soldiers have e't us all out." 

The feller went out the do', and it was n't ten minutes 
befo' the bam was a-fire. The men jest had to get up on 
top of the house and spread wet blankets all over the roof 
to keep the tavern from burning. We could n't save the 
bam. That burnt down to the ground, and the chickens 
and everything in it was bumt up. Ohl it was an awful 
time. 

1 She was seated in her rocking-chair in her tiny sitting-room with a 
little shawl over her turbaned head. Her mind was still clear, but her 
body was bent and decrepit. A cat lay sleeping on the lounge. Oppo- 
site the lounge was a table on which a family Bible was conspicuous. 
The walls of the room were adorned with a few framed photographs 
including an enlarged portrait, and there was a colored representation 
of the crucifixion, a picture of Lincoln, and one of Wilkes Booth with 
the devil looking over his shoulder. 



110 Antietam 

General Lee come to the house early the next morning. 
He was a fine-lookin' man, and he was the head general of 
'em all in the Rebel army, you know. Our old boss was a 
Democrat, too; so he gave the general his breakfast. But 
while the officers was eatin' there in the dining-room a 
shell come right thoo the wall and busted and scattered 
brick and daubin' all over everything. There was so much 
dirt you could n't tell what was on the table. I was bringin' 
in coffee from the kitchen and had a cup and saucer in my 
hand. I don't know where I put that coffee, but I thro wed 
it away, and we all got out of there in a hurry. 

I went out to the gate. An old colored man was comin' 
down the pavement with an iron pot on his head. He said 
the Yankees had got the Rebels on the run, and there 'd be 
fightin' right in the town streets. He was goin' to get away, 
and he was carryin' that pot so he'd have somethin' to 
cook in. 

Pretty soon I was back workin' in the kitchen, but the 
soldiers told me I 'd better get out, and then all of us in the 
house went into the cellar. We carried boards down there 
and spread carpets on 'em and took chairs down to set on. 
There was seven or eight of us, white and black, and we 
was all so scared we did n't know what we was doin' half 
the time. They kept us in the cellar all day while they was 
fightin' backwards and forwards. My goodness alive! there 
was cannon and everything shootin'. Lord 'a' mercy, man! 
we could hear 'em plain enough.. The cannon sounded jest 
like thunder, and the small-arms the same as pop-guns. 
Sometimes we'd run up and look out of a window to see 
what was happening, but we did n't do that often — not 
the way them guns was firin'. 

By and by word was sent in for the women and children 




GEXERAL LEE'S BREAKFAST IS INTERRUPTED 



The Slave Woman at the Tavern 111 

to all leave town. That was about — le 's see — between ten 
and 'leven o'clock, I reckon. We went out on the street, and 
there lay a horse with his whole backbone split wide open. 
The ambulances was comin' into town, and the wounded 
men in 'em was hollerin', "0 Lord! Lord! Lord!" 

Poor souls! and the blood was runnin' down thoo the 
bottom of the wagons. Some of the houses was hospitals, 
and the doctors was cuttin' off people's legs and arms and 
throwin' 'em out the do' jest like throwin' out old sticks. 

We had n't gone only a couple of houses when a shell 
busted right over our heads. So we took back to the cel- 
lar in a hurry. The way they was shootin' and goin' on 
we might have been killed befo' we was out of town. 

After they'd fit all day and it got to be night they ceased 
fightin' and was n't doin' much shootin', and then we come 
up and got a little mouthful of food. We did n't have 
nothin' to eat in the cellar, and, indeed, we was glad to be 
there ourselves, and was n't botherin' about no dinner or 
no supper. 

At last the Rebels retreated and we heard 'em hollerin'. 
I spoke to one of 'em who was passin', and said, "Did you 
have a hard fight to-day?" 

"Yes, Aunty," he said, "the Yankees give us the devil, 
and they'll give us hell next." 

I went in the house and laid down, but I could n't sleep 
none because I did n't know when they'd break in on me. 
Oh Lordy! that was a squally time — squally, squally 
time — squally time, sure ! 

The Rebels all got away the next morning early. They 
run in every direction. You could n't hardly tell what 
direction they was n't runnin' to get across the Potomac 
into Virginia. 



112 Antietam 

We was afraid there would be mo' fightin', and we went 
out of the town tereckly and stayed with a farmer till the 
next day. My old boss got a pass. There was pickets all 
along the road who would stop you. Yes, sir, they stopped 
every one that come along and asked where they was goin' 
to. We come home Friday, and then we had everything to 
clean up. But we thanked the Lord we was n't killed, and 
we did n't mind the dirt. 

Well, my time is pretty near out now. I can't do a day's 
work no mo', and I jest have to depend on the mercy of 
people. I'm goin' on eighty-seven years old, and I'm 
pretty near blind and can't hardly see any one. I have to 
go around with a cane, and mostly I jest set in my chair 
and do nothin'. 



XIII 

The Canal Boatman ^ 

I FOLLOWED boating on the canal, but at the time of the 
battle I was here at Sharpsburg where I had a home on the 
outskirts of the town. I was a young fellow then, twenty- 
eight years old. In the early part of the war, when I did n't 
think it was goin' to be much of anjrthing, I felt toward the 
South because I had a brother in the Confederate army. 
He liked soldierin' as well as eatin', but he got knocked to 
pieces pretty well before the war was over. His side was 
mashed in, and he lost an arm. The doctors never could 
get his broken ribs into shape so but that he was one-sided, 
and yet he got through the war sound enough to travel for 
a firm sellin' goods. Things was very much unsettled in the 
South where he made his trips, and one time he left us and 
started on a trip as usual, and we've never heard anything 
of him since. He had to wear good clothes, and he looked 
like a prosperous man with money. Maybe he was killed 
and robbed, or maybe he died of yellow fever in New 
Orleans. 

As I said, I favored the South early in the war, but later 
I did n't care which side won if only they put a stop to the 
fightin', though it did seem to me it would be better to have 
one country. 

' 1 I spent part of a rainy day with him in a Sharpsburg home. He 
was a large-featured, full-whiskered man, still in vigorous health in 
spite of his age. 



114 Antietam 

The Southern troops began to come in here on the Mon- 
day before the battle, and on Tuesday the wagons and 
artillery and men were goin' back and forth, and there was 
continual noise all the time. We was havin' a drouth, and 
the weather was very hot. They did n't pay any attention 
to the regular highways, but went across the fields the 
nearest way to where they wanted to go, and the dust on 
those roads they made was ankle deep. 

There was cannonading all day, and the people was hidin' 
and gettin' away as fast as they could. But we'd had word 
that any one who owned a good house had better stay and 
take care of it because in an army there 's always fellows who 
will plunder houses left unprotected. So I stayed at home. 

On Wednesday morning the artillery opened up before 
day, and it made such a racket you'd think the earth was 
opening up. I went out to feed my horse, and on the way 
back a shell come mighty near gettin' me. It bursted over 
my head and stunned me right smart. My brother-in-law 
was in the house, and when I got in there he said, "What's 
the matter, Jake, that you look so pale?" 

I took him out and showed him the pieces of shell scat- 
tered all around, and he said, "There's goin' to be a fight, 
and a big one." 

The sound of the shells was like wind blowing over the 
telephone wires. When the cannonade ceased, then I could 
hear the bullets buzz like bees. Pretty soon the balls com- 
menced comin' in the house, and I thought it was time to 
get somewhere else. The hotel here belonged to my brother, 
and I thought I'd go down there. So I run from behind 
one big house to another till I got to the hotel. I could look 
right around the corner of it and see the Confederate artil- 
lery on the hill. I see one of the gunners drug away from 



The Canal Boatman 115 

the cannon down in a hollow where the reserves were, but I 
don't know whether he was crippled or killed. Two other 
men was with me, and we was the only citizens in sight 
around the town. 

We had n't been there but a very short time when half a 
dozen Confederates come down a cross street with eleven 
prisoners. One of the prisoners had his jaw shot off. I shall 
never forget how he looked. 

A shell went into a hogpen near us and killed two hogs. 
Another shell struck the heel of a soldier in the street and 
turned him over and over like a wagon wheel. 

About one o'clock I started to go back to my own place 
to look at my horse. But after I 'd dodged along a ways the 
cannonading got so heavy I thought I'd go into a cellar 
till it ceased a little. I was behind an old log house, and I 
took hold of the basement door. At the first pull it did n't 
come open, and the second pull yanked the door off its 
hinges. Then I saw that the basement was full of Confed- 
erate soldiers. I went down in there, and about that time a 
shell struck the end of the house and knocked out some 
logs and bricks. I heard a scuffling in the room above. 
Another lot of Confederate soldiers was up there, and they 
came down to the basement for better protection. 

One of 'em had a splinter — a piece of a log, you know — 
in his arm. He asked some of his comrades to pull it out, 
and they would n't. Then he asked me, and I did n't dare 
refuse. I pulled him off his feet before I got it out. The ex- 
plosion had skun his back from his neck down and tore his 
clothes pretty near off of him. He must have been lying 
down on his stomach. He fared worse than some who 
fought in the battle. There was skulkers on both sides, 
but I saw only Confederate skulkers in that old house. 



116 Antietam 

I had just one lot to cross to get to my stable, and when 
the firing slacked up and I went, I did n't go very slow, I 
tell you. But I found my horse was gone, and the stable 
was full of cavalry horses. A fellow was there lookin' after 
'em, and I said, "Where's mine?" 

"He's out there hitched to the fence," the fellow an- 
swered. 

I looked, and I did n't know the horse at first because he 
had on a cavalry saddle and bridle. " I 've been riding him," 
the fellow said, "and he's a good horse. Sell him to me." 

He seemed to be a gentleman — that fellow, and he 
offered me three or four times what the horse was worth, 
but it was Confederate money. The horse was a fine one 
for any purpose, and only six years old, and I did n't want 
to part with him for Confederate money. I told the fellow 
I'd be back in an hour or so, and then I'd sell the horse 
to him. That was the only way I could save my horse. I 
took the rig off, put on a bridle of my own, and rode up an 
alley to the hotel. The stable there was full of straw, but I 
pulled out some and got the horse in. Then I tucked the 
straw around so he could n't be seen, and there he stayed 
till the battle ended. A month afterward, when the straw 
was being used, a shell was found in it that had come in 
through the log walls. If that shell had exploded, the straw 
would have been set on fire, and my horse would have been 
killed. 

Stragglers were running around robbing the houses of 
people who 'd gone away, and they got in my house and 
just took everything. Besides, they took five mules of mine 
out of a field where I kept 'em. Them were mules that did 
my towing on the canal. 

Some of the houses in the town were used for hospitals. 



The Canal Boatman 117 

The doctors would huddle the family all into one little 
room, or turn 'em out. The house across the way from 
mine was a hospital, and the family there got what the 
doctors called camp fever, and some of 'em died. 

For three or four days the soldiers was busy out on the 
battlefield burying the dead. Lots of dead men got pretty 
strong before they was buried, the weather was so hot; and 
the stench was terrible — terrible! 

On Friday I was engaged in helping drag the dead horses 
out of town. A farmer with four horses and a black man 
and myself did that work. We'd hitch a log-chain around a 
dead horse's neck, and it was all that the four horses could 
do to drag the carcass over the hills. We burnt what we 
could on the edge of the town, but fence rails was the only 
fuel and most of those had been used for campfires. I 
s'pose we burnt ten or twelve, and we drug nearly as many 
more out on the farms so as to get the stench away from 
the town. 

One trouble, after the battle, was to get feed for our 
stock. I had to ride a whole day to buy some hay, and 
there 'd been a lot made, too, but it had been taken for the 
army horses. 

I don't care about ever seein' a war again, but of co'se I 
would n't stand havin' another country pitch onto us. 
Why, in that case, if I was a young man, I 'd fight as sure 
as you're bom. 



XIV 

A Maryland Maiden ^ 

We were all up in the Lutheran Church at Sunday-school 
on the Sunday before the battle when the Rebel cavalry 
came dashing through the town. The whole assembly 
flocked out, and there was nothing but excitement from 
that on. We just imagined something was going to happen, 
and the children ran home from church in terror. There 
was no dinner eaten that day. The people were too fright- 
ened. We'd go out the front door and stand waiting to 
see what would be next to come. 

I was twenty years old then. My father was a black- 
smith, and we lived in this same big stone house on the 
main street of the town. I suppose the house was built a 
hundred and fifty or more years ago. 

Most of us in this region favored the Union, and the 
ladies had made a big flag out of material that the towns- 
people bought. For a while we had it on a pole in the 
square, but some of the Democratic boys cut the flag rope 
every night. So we took the flag down and hung it on a 
rope stretched across from our garret window to that of 
the house opposite. In pleasant weather it was out all the 
time. But when we heard that Lee had crossed the Poto- 
mac Pa began to be uneasy, and he says, "Girls, what 

* We chatted in one of the old-fashioned, wood-panelled rooms of 
her ancestral village home. She was a slender, elderly gentlewoman, 
but though the years had left their mark they had in nowise subdued 
her natural alertness and enthusiasm. 



A Maryland Maiden 119 

you goin' to do with that flag? If the Rebels come into 
town they'll take it sure as the world." 

He thought we 'd better hide it in the ground somewhere. 
So a lady friend of mine and I put it in a strong wooden 
box, and buried it in the ash pile behind the smokehouse 
in the garden. 

When the Rebel cavalry went through that Sunday we 
had no idea what they were up to, and we could n't help 
being fearful that we were in danger. We expected 
trouble that night, but all was quiet until the next day. 
Then more Rebels came, and they nearly worried us to 
death asking for something to eat. They were half fam- 
ished and they looked like tramps — filthy and ragged. 

By Tuesday there was enough going on to let us know 
we were likely to have a battle near by. Early in the day 
two or three Rebels, who 'd been informed by some one that 
a Union flag was concealed at my father's place, came right 
to the house, and I met 'em at the door. Their leader said : 
" We've come to demand that flag you've got here. Give 
it up at once or we'll search the house." 

"I'll not give it up, and I guess you'll not come any 
farther than you are, sir," I said. 

They were impudent fellows, and he responded, " If you 
don't tell me where that flag is I '11 draw my revolver on 
you." 

"It's of no use for you to threaten," I said. "Rather 
than have you touch a fold of that starry flag I laid it in 
ashes." 

They seemed to be satisfied then and went away without 
suspecting just how I 'd laid it in ashes. 

Tuesday afternoon the neighbors began to come in here. 
Our basement was very large with thick stone walls, and 



120 Antietam 

they wanted to take refuge in it if there was danger. There 
were women and children of all ages and some very old men. 
Mostly they stood roundabout in the yard listening and 
looking. The cannonading started late in the day, and 
when there was a very loud report they scampered to the 
cellar. 

A lot of townspeople run out of the village to a cave 
about three miles from here near the Potomac. The cave 
was just an overhanging ledge of rocks, but shells and 
cannon balls would fly over it and could n't hurt the peo- 
ple under the cliff. I reckon seventy-five went to that 
cave. 

Before day, on Wednesday, a cannon ball tore up the 
pavement out in front of our house. Oh my soul! we 
thought we were gone. There was no more sleep, but most 
of us were awake anyhow. After that, you know, we all 
flew to the cellar. Very little was stored in there at that 
time of year. We carried down some seats, and we made 
board benches around, and quite a number of us got up on 
the potato bunks and the apple scaffolds. We were as 
comfortable as we could possibly be in a cellar, but it 's a 
wonder we did n't all take our deaths of colds in that damp 
place. 

We did n't have any breakfast — you bet we did n't — 
and no dinner was got that day, or supper — no, indeed ! 
We had to live on fear. But a few of the women thought 
enough to bring some food in their baskets for the children. 
The battle did n't prevent the children from eating. They 
did n't understand the danger. 

A number of babies were there, and several dogs, and 
every time the firing began extra hard the babies would cry 
and the dogs would bark. Often the reports were so loud 



A Maryland Maiden* 121 

they shook the walls. Occasionally a woman was quite un- 
nerved and hysterical, and some of those old aged men 
would break out in prayer. 

In the height of the fighting six Rebel soldiers opened 
the basement door and said, "We're comin' in, but we're 
not a-goin' to hurt you." 

We had a spring in the cellar. The water filled a shallow 
tank, and that was where our family got what water was 
used in the house. Those refugee soldiers went back in a 
little nook right next to the spring. There they stood like 
sardines in a box, and every once in a while one would slip 
down into the water. 

We had two cows and a horse in our stable, and at dinner 
time Mother and I went to feed 'em. We climbed up to pull 
down some hay and found the haymow just full of Rebels 
a-layin' there hiding. 

"Madam, don't be frightened," one of 'em said to 
Mother. "We're hidin' till the battle is over. We 're tired 
of fightin'. We were pressed into service, and we're goin' 
to give ourselves up as soon as the Yankees get here." 

And that was what they did. When the Yankees rushed 
into town these Rebels came through the garden and gave 
themselves up as prisoners. 

There were deserters hid in every conceivable place in 
the town. We had a lot of sacks of seed wheat on our back 
porch, and some of the skulkers piled the sacks up on the 
outside of the porch three or four feet high, as a sort of 
bulwark, which they lay down behind to shelter them- 
selves. How they did curse their leaders for bringing them 
into this slaughter pen. They said they hoped the hottest 
place in hell would be their leaders' portion. 

Some of the townsmen in the cellar would come up and 



122 Antletam 

venture out under the porch, but they were afraid to stay- 
out ; and the danger was n't just fancied either. A shell 
exploded right out here at our front gate and killed or 
wounded seven men. 

And yet, mind you, on Wednesday afternoon, another 
girl and myself went up to the attic, and though the bullets 
were raining on the roof, we threw open the shutter and 
looked out toward the battleground. We were curious to 
know what was going on. The bullets could have struck us 
just as easy, but we did n't seem to fear them. On all the 
distant hills around were the blue uniforms and shining 
bayonets of our men, and I thought it was the prettiest 
sight I ever saw in my life. Yes, there were our men, ad- 
vancing cautiously, driven back again and again, but per- 
sistently returning and pushing nearer. My! it was lovely, 
and I felt so glad to think that we were going to get them 
into town shortly. We stayed up there I suppose a couple 
of hours at that little window, and then old Dr. Kelsey 
came himting for us and made us come down. I shall 
always remember what we saw from that window, and 
many times I go up to the attic and look out, and the view 
brings it all back. 

In the evening mother and I slipped down to the stable 
and did the milking. But afterward we went back to the 
cellar, for the firing kept up till ten o'clock. Then we came 
up and snatched what little bit we could to eat. We did n't 
cook anything but took what was prepared, like bread and 
butter and milk. Our neighbors who had been in the cellar 
did n't attempt to go home. Some of the older ones we ac- 
commodated in beds, others lay on the floors, but the best 
part of the people sat up all night and watched, for we 
did n't know what was going to come on us. 



A Maryland Maiden 123 

About midnight we heard the Rebels retreating. Oh ! the 
cannon just came down the hill bouncing. And the cavalry 
— my! if they didn't dash through here! The infantry, 
too, were going on a dead run, and some of the poor, hungry 
fellows were so weak they were saying to their stronger 
comrades, "Take hold of my hand, and help me along." A 
lot of 'em were drownded in going across the Potomac. 

We were overjoyed to know that our men had won — 
yes, we certainly were happy. Well, the next morning 
everything was quiet. It was an unearthly quiet after all 
the uproar of the battle. The people who had taken refuge 
with us saw that the danger was over, and they scattered 
away to their homes. Father and I went out on the front 
pavement. We could see only a few citizens moving about, 
but pretty soon a Federal officer came cautiously around 
the comer by the church. He asked Father if any one was 
hurt in the town and said they had tried to avoid shelling 
it, and he was awful sorry they could n't help dropping an 
occasional shell among the houses. 

I lost no time now in getting our flag from the ash heap 
so I could have it where it would be seen when our men 
marched into the town. I draped it on the front of the 
house, but I declare to goodness! I had to take that flag 
down. It made the officers think our house was a hotel, 
and they'd ride up, throw their reins to their orderlies, and 
come clanking up the steps with their swords and want 
something to eat. So I hurried to get it swung across the 
street, and after that, as the officers and men passed under 
it they all took off their hats. Their reverence for the flag 
was beautiful, and so was the flag. 

I had a little flag in my hand, and while I was waving and 
waving it and cheering our victorious troops some prison- 



124 Antietam 

ers marched by, and, bless your soul! among them I saw the 
very men who had demanded the big flag that was now 
suspended across the street. They looked at the flag and 
at me and shouted, "You said it was burned!" and they 
cursed me till some of our men drew their swords and 
quieted 'em down. "We'll settle with you when we come 
through here again," they called back, but they never came. 

Our men were much cleaner and better fed than the 
Rebels, and their clothing was whole. The trains soon ar- 
rived with the hardtack, and there were baggage wagons 
and ambulances and everything. We had our men here 
with us quite a while camped in the town woods, and so 
constant was the coming and going of troops and army con- 
veyances on the highways that we did n't get to speak to 
our neighbors across the street for weeks. Those were ex- 
citing times, but we felt safe. Of course there were some 
common, rough fellows among the soldiers, but as a general 
thing we found them very nice and we became much at- 
tached to them. When they went away it left us decidedly 
lonely here. 

As for the day of the battle, it was tragic, but after the 
fighting was all over and I just sat and studied everything 
that had transpired a good deal was really laughable. 

Well, the region was dreadfully torn to pieces by the con- 
flict, but now you see no trace of it only the cemeteries. 



XV 

The Little Rebel ' 

My father used to be a bookkeeper in a Fredericksburg 
store, and for two years before the war he had just been 
dying of dispepsia. He did n't weigh over one hundred and 
twenty pounds and was nothing on earth but a frame of 
bones. One day he came home from work and said, "Well, 
war has been declared, and I must join the army." 

He got an appointment as quartermaster. We thought he 
could never stand army life, but he had to go out foraging, 
and the knocking about did him good. He recovered from 
his dispepsia, put on flesh, and became hearty and strong. 

However, after he'd been in the army about a year he 
was taken sick with typhoid fever down in Richmon'. 
Presently he began to get better, and he felt that he must 
come home. The Yankees had control of Fredericksburg 
at that time. So he did n't dare come straight here, but 
stopped a few miles away at the home of a Mrs. Smith, 
who was a friend of ours. He asked her to get word to Maw, 
and she sent her little boy with the family carriage and a 

1 At the time of my acquaintance with her she was a gray, slight 
little woman, whose closest companions seemed to be two dogs. She 
was living in a small, old-fashioned weoden house that the Northern 
bombshells had battered, and the passing years had warped the walls 
and floors so that the doors were troublesome about opening and shut- 
ting. Dressmaking furnished her a livelihood, and while we talked she 
sat with her work scattered all about and her sewing-machine close 
at hand. 



126 Fredericksburg 

note that said: "Come at once. Have a surprise in store 
for you." 

We lived in a nice large house on the main street in the 
business part of the town. I was sixteen then, and I had 
two brothers who were both younger, and a sister who was 
a little tot just beginning to walk. 

The carriage that our friend sent was drawn by one 
horse, but it had two seats, and me and Maw and my little 
sister got in and went along. When we reached Mrs. 
Smith's house, there was Father, and he looked like death 
itself he was so white and thin, for he'd been ill a long time. 
I suppose his full black beard and long black hair made 
him appear all the paler. We got there in time for supper, 
and we stayed two days. It was on a Sunday afternoon 
that we started for home. Father walked along with us as 
far as the road gate to bid us good-by. We got in the car- 
riage and left him standing there, and Mother called back, 
"When you get to Richmon' be sure to write." 

He was a great home body, and it like to have killed him 
to have to part from us. He just thought to himself, "Can 
I give them up and not see the others?" and instead of 
going to our friend's house he came right on toward Fred- 
ericksburg. The railroad track made a short cut into the 
town, and he followed that. He had on citizens' clothes, 
and nobody paid any attention to him. So he walked on 
and on, and at last came in at the front gate of his own 
home. That was shortly after we'd got here, and Mother 
had just gone across the street to tell some of the neighbors 
that she'd seen him. We sent for her, and when she came 
and found out who was there she was perfectly miserable. 
Of course she was glad to see him, but she was just wild she 
was so 'fraid the Yankees would ketch him. 



The Little Rebel 127 

The Yankee suttlers had stores m the town, and we 
knew a little Northern drummer boy who worked for one 
of them. He had been sick a while before, and Maw was so 
sorry for him that she had him stay at our house where 
she could take care of him. On the day after Paw came 
into town this drummer boy spoke to me and said he'd 
like to give my father some oranges and bananas. 

"You're foolish, boy," I said. "You have n't seen any 
man in our house." 

"Yes," he said, "I saw one go m yesterday, and I 
thought he looked like you." 

"Oh, no!" I said, "but you can bring that fruit to me. 
I'll eat it myself." 

Father stayed in town a week, but he went to the house 
of a friend for the last three days, we were so fearful he 
would be discovered if he remained with us. Sunday came, 
and about seven o'clock in the morning he went out on the 
street carrying a little bucket in his hand as if he was going 
blackberrying. Mother had told him good-by the night be- 
fore. "Don't come again, please, till after the war," she 
begged. 

Things were getting too hot here, and it was certainly 
high time that he made his way out. The town was just 
filled with Confederate soldiers spying, and we'd heard 
there was goin' to be a general search for 'em. Sure enough, 
on Sunday afternoon, when Paw had only been gone a few 
hours, a dozen men with an officer came to the house, and 
the officer said to Maw, "Have you seen Captain Turner?" 

"No," she said, and she considered that she was tellin' 
the truth because she called him Jim. 

But the officer insisted on searching the premises. Maw 
was nervous, and I did most of the talking, and I followed 



128 Fredericksburg 

the officer as he went about. He noticed that I wore a 
breastpin with a man's portrait on it, and he said, " Is that 
Captain Turner's picture on your breastpin? " 

"You can find out, sir, if you are able," I retorted. 
"You're lookin' for Captain Turner, and you ought to 
know whether this is the picture of the person you're 
after." 

"Is n't that your father?" the officer asked. 

" I have n't told you who it is," I answered. 

"You're a saucy little minx," he said. 

There we were — only him and me — up on the third 
floor jawing. He searched from the cellar to the roof. 
There was n't any place he did n't search in, I tell you. He 
turned up the beds, and he looked in the wardrobes and 
closets. He even pulled open the bureau drawers, and I 
said, "Do you think Captain Turner is small enough to 
get in there?" 

At last he climbed out of a dormer window onto the slate 
roof, crawled up to the ridge, and looked down the chimney. 
I don't know how on earth he ever got up there. When he 
was comin' back his feet slipped, and I leaned out of the 
window and just managed to ketch him by his two arms. I 
held on and hollered, "Help!" 

One of his men come rushing up the steps, and Maw 
come, too. They helped pull him in. "Oh!" he gasped, 
** you have saved my life." 

He was speakin' to me. "I did n't do it from choice," I 
said, "but because I did n't want a dead Yankee on the 
place on Sunday afternoon." 

That was a close call for him. If he'd fallen three stories 
onto our brick-paved yard he'd have been killed. 

Father had started off as if he was goin' berrying, and he 




A NARROW ESCAPE 



The Little Rebel 129 

did n't meet a soul. He went right out the plank road west 
of the town, and kept on walkin', walkin', till he just had 
to sit down to rest himself. But finally he got to Mrs. 
Smith's where he was before. 

"Well, for heaven's sake! where are you goin' now?" 
she asked, when she found him at her door. 

"I'm tryin' to make Richmon'," he said. 

He stayed at Mrs. Smith's over night. Next morning, 
while he was eating breakfast, he looked out and saw a 
dust rising from the road in the distance. "I believe there 
are soldiers comin'," he said. 

But Mrs Smith told him the dust was raised by cattle, 
and Father went on eating. Presently he heard the sound 
of horses' hoofs and saw from the window a whole com- 
pany of cavalry entering the yard. He dodged out of a back 
door and started down the hill toward the woods. The 
cavalrymen saw him, and five of them charged after him. 
By the time he'd crossed the yard they were so close they 
struck at him with their sabers. He made a dive through 
the barnyard gate, and the gate closed after him. His pur- 
suers had to stop and open it, and that gave him a chance 
to jump the barnyard fence into a field. Then he ran on 
down the hill to a little spring branch in among a right 
heavy growth of trees. The cavalrymen had a little diffi- 
culty in getting their horses over the fence, and their 
leader was very angry. He stood up in his saddle and 
shouted to his followers: "Circle to the right two abreast. 
We'll find that man if we find him in hell to-night." 

Father had got into the woods, and he lay down right in 
the water of the little branch — and him gettin' over the 
typhoid fever. The cavalrymen dashed about huntin' for 
him, and if he'd had a three foot stick in his hand he could 



130 Fredericksburg 

have touched them with it they came so close, but they 
did n't find him. 

By and by, the men gave up their search, and Mrs. Smith 
sent a negro woman to get some water down at the spring, 
which was near where she'd seen Father disappear among 
the trees. " If you see Captain Turner," she said, " tell him 
to keep on in the woods and not try to come back to the 
house." 

The woman went to the spring, and Father crawled out 
of the branch and spoke to her, and she said, "Ain't they 
done killed you?" 

She was excited and talked louder than he thought was 
necessary. "Hush!" he said. "Where are those men who 
were chasin' me?" 

"Their commander called 'em back to the house," she 
answered. 

"Well," he said, "you can tell Mis' Lizzie I'm safe so 
far." 

Then the colored woman gave him the message her 
mistress had sent, and walked off with the bucket of water 
on her head as if nothing had happened. The cavalrymen 
were still at the house, and they questioned her, but 
did n't discover her secret. She was right smart not to 
give it away. 

Father kept out of sight on the wood roads till he got 
way up country, and in the end he reached Richmon' in 
safety. 

The front room of our house was made for a store, and a 
man by the name of Jones rented it and kept groceries. He 
often sold things to the Union soldiers who were camped 
on the other side of the Rappahanock for several months 
before the battle. We had burnt the bridges in '61, but a 



The Little Rebel 131 

wire bridge for foot passengers had been fixed up, and the 
soldiers would come over on that, eighteen or twenty in a 
bunch, to visit the city. Sometimes the streets would be 
thronged with 'em. 

One day a soldier came into the grocery store and went 
behind the counter and took a piece of tobacco, and he 
was n't goin' to pay. The tobacco only cost ten cents, and 
he took it for a projec' more than anything else. That was 
his idea of fun. "Stop!" Mr. Jones said. "Pay for what 
you've taken or I'll have you arrested, sir." 

But the man went off with the tobacco. Then Mr. Jones 
just spoke to a guard, and the soldier was locked up for a 
certain number of days as a punishment. The officers were 
right strict with the men and tried to make 'em behave 
themselves, but in a crowd like that, you know, there 's 
bound to be some rowdies. 

Early in December that soldier hollered across the river 
to our pickets: "You tell Roy Jones he'd better get out of 
town. We're goin' to hang him if we ketch him, and we're 
goin' to burn his store." 

The threat was reported to my mother, and she was 
very uneasy. Mr. Jones had begun to move his business to 
a town farther south, things were so unsettled at Freder- 
icksburg, and Mother said to him, "Please take your sign 
along with your goods." 

"Oh, yes!" he said, "I'll sure take that. I'll need it 
where I 'm goin'." 

He got it off from the store front and put it inside, and 
there he left it while he went with a load of goods to his 
new location. He'd got to come back for another load, and 
then he intended to carry along the sign. But a couple of 
days later our minister came to the house and said to 



132 Fredericksburg 

Mother: "Sister Turner, orders are bein' sent around that 
we must leave before daybreak to-morrow. The Yankees 
are goin' to shell the town." 

The Northern commander and General Lee had con- 
sulted under a flag of truce, and they'd agreed to give the 
citizens that warning. Maw did n't want to leave. Our 
soldiers were in the town then, and she vowed she would 
stay cookin' and handin' out things to 'em. 

But it seemed as if everybody else was gettin' out of here. 
They went up the road by the dozen carrying bundles of 
clothes. I set up there in our second story window, and 
watched 'em. One man went past with such a large bundle 
I could n't help laughing. I pointed him out to Maw and 
said, " It looks to me as if that man had a feather bed on 
his back." 

" Mary, I believe you 'd laugh at your own funeral," 
Maw told me. 

"Well," I said, "I reckon I'm half -past silly." 

Lots of people went out of town on the cars. Others 
went in teams, and they hired everything in the world in 
the shape of a vehicle that was available. They were 
branchin' out from the town anywhere they could get. 
There were families of means that took refuge in little log 
cabins — even in the negro cabins — and were glad of the 
shelter. 

At last Maw consented to leave, but when I went for a 
carriage I could n't get one, nor a cart, nor a vestige of any- 
thing. But General Lee sent in ten big canvas-covered 
army wagons, late that night, and I got one of those. We 
put in a bed and some provisions, and then got in ourselves. 
My aunt, who lived across the street, went with us. It was 
just getting daylight in the morning when we started. I 



The Little Rebel 133 

had a Confederate flag hanging out of the rear of the wagon, 
and my aunt was scared to death because the batteries 
across the river had a direct Une on us. She was afraid the 
Yankees would shoot us as we was drivin' up the street. 

" I don't care," I said; " I 'm goin' to fly my colors. They 
have no business makin' us go out of town. If they don't 
want me to fly my flag they can let us stay here." 

We 'd gone a mile or two, and I was settin' there in the 
wagon when we met some troops comin' up the road. 
General Lee and his staff were with 'em, and I waved my 
flag and the general saluted it. About three miles farther 
on we got beyond the firing line, and the captain of the 
wagon train spoke to us and said, "Now here's where 
I'm ordered to dump everybody, and you'll have to get 
out." 

"No, indeed," I said, "you'll not put us out here. I'm 
Captain Turner's daughter." 

All the army men knew Captain Turner, and the wagon 
master said he'd ta.ke us wherever we wanted to go. A 
friend of ours, Mr. Holliday, lived eight miles from town 
out on that road. He had a big farm and was quite a 
wealthy man before the war. He must have owned hun- 
dreds of slaves. Their cabins were all around his house, al- 
most like a village, and each family had a little garden 
spot. The first time I was ever there I went with Father, 
and we met some little darkies as we approached the house. 
Father asked them who they belonged to. 

"We belong to Mr. John Holliday," they said, "and he's 
a mighty nice man." 

"Doesn't he whip you?" Father said. 

"No, sir," the oldest child replied, "and he wouldn't 
let my mammy whip me if he knew it." 



134 Fredericksburg 

When we refugeed I had the army wagon take us to Mr. 
Holliday's. I only weighed sixty-eight pounds, but I'd 
put on three dresses that morning — in fact, I was wearing 
nearly all the clothes I possessed ; and the colored man who 
helped us out of the wagon thought I looked so big and 
strong that I did n't need any assistance, and I just flopped 
out. 

A good many others had flocked to Mr. Holliday's, and 
when night came we had to sleep anjrwhere we could. I 
shared a room with twelve others. We arranged blankets 
and quilts on the floor so we could he side by side, one 
right after the other. When they had all lain down except 
me I counted 'em and said :"I won't be the thirteenth. I 'm 
goin' to sit up in a chair." 

Don't you know, speakin' of that, the war was a sad 
thing, and it was often a hardship bein' knocked around as 
we were, but we had right much fun. 

We did n't have pillows that night, and we tipped chairs 
down so the backs would slant up for us to rest our heads 
on. But after the first night we arranged things so we were 
more comfortable. 

Mr. Holliday's house was heated only by fireplaces, and 
I shall never forget how cold it was there in those days 
of early winter. We had great big fires, but you had to sit 
right on top of 'em to keep warm. I said to Maw, "I 
feel like my face was burning up and my back freezing up 
here before this fire." 

We 'd been at Mr. Holliday's nearly a week and there 'd 
been no bombarding yet; so I decided to go to town and 
see if I could save some furniture. I walked, and two other 
ladies came with me. A part of the way we went around by 
paths and through strips of woods to flank the pickets. But 



The Little Rebel 135 

we finally met a picket down here back of the town, and he 
says, "Ladies, where are you goin'?" 

We told him what we wanted to do, and he let us come 
on in. The place was almost deserted. There were just a 
few people about, and all the stores were closed except one 
or two and the eating-places for the soldiers to get a lunch. 
I went to an officer, and he ordered two men to take a four 
horse wagon and go with me. He said I could fill that with 
whatever we wanted to carry off, and he would provide an 
ambulance for me and my friends to ride back in. I packed 
away some of the things at the house, and had the men put 
in the wagon such articles as we needed for every-day use. 
I know the load included considerable clothing, several 
chairs and beds, and a couple of bureaus. Later in the day 
we returned to Mr. Holliday's. That was December 12th. 

The next morning, about five o'clock, I reckon, I was 
waked by the report of a cannon. It shook the glassware 
in the china closet that stood in the room where we were 
sleeping. The gun was fired by the Confederates to an- 
noimce that the Yankees were attempting to cross the 
river. After some sharp fighting the Federals succeeded 
in making pontoon bridges, and in order to drive back the 
Confederates they shelled the town off and on all day. 
Finally they got across and our men retreated. 

When the town fell into their hands some of them went 
into a house near ours and asked a negro servant, who was 
the only person at home there, for a firebrand. He wanted 
to know what they intended to do with it. 

They said, "We're goin' to bum that house across the 
way because Roy Jones, who treated us so bad has his 
grocery store in it." 

"But Jones has moved away/' the negro told 'em. 



136 Fredericksburg 

"You can't fool us," they said. "We've looked through 
the window, and we can see his sign inside." 

So they took a chunk of fire from the kitchen fireplace 
and went into our cellar and started a blaze. We had thir- 
teen cords of wood in the cellar and the greatest quantity 
of groceries that my Paw had put in to last two or three 
years. He was a splendid provider. When he was buying 
supplies for the army he would get supplies for us, and we 
had everything in the world we wanted. There were three 
barrels of flour, two barrels of sugar, a sack of coffee, and a 
barrel of corned beef, and there were the hams and shoul- 
ders of three hogs hung up ready cured. All that was 
burned, and so was our china-ware and library and every- 
thing. I never bothered with any deep literature then, but 
Father said he had books he could n 't replace to save his 
life. The house of our nearest neighbor caught fire from 
ours, and went up in flames; and all that destruction was 
the result of the soldiers' antipathy toward one man — our 
tenant, Jones. 

On the night of the twelfth the ladies who were at the 
Hollidays' scraped lint, and I haven't made any since. I 
got my share of makin' it then. We certainly did work 
hard. I scraped two tablecloths into lint with my pen- 
knife. Indeed, I scraped right down through my clothing 
to the flesh, and I said to the others, "It's time I was 
dressin' my own wounds." 

After the fightin' began the next day I walked with a 
lady friend up to within three miles of the town. The 
bullets were flying, and there were lots of wounded who 
needed attention, and we thought we would help take 
care of them. We came to a field hospital where they had 
amputation tables all about among the trees of an orchard 



The Little Rebel 137 

close to the main road. The doctors were cutting off arms 
and legs, and the amputated limbs lay in piles by the 
tables. It was such a terrible sight that we didn't stay 
there long. We couldn't stand it, and we returned to 
Mr. Holliday's. 

All day the ambulances were going past the house on 
their way to the nearest railroad station. You could hear 
the wounded men in them groanin' a quarter of a mile 
away, it hurt the poor things so to jolt over the road. A 
good many of the ambulances stopped in front of the 
house to have the men's wounds dressed, and sometimes 
the men would be laid out on the grass. The rags on their 
wounds got so dry they chafed them, and we had to wash 
the wounds and put on clean cloths. I don't know how 
many sheets we tore up. 

"0 lady! we do thank you so much," they'd say when 
they were leaving. They were taken six miles farther to 
the railroad and sent on to Richmon'. 

The sight of blood makes me faint. I can't bear it. I 
can't even cut a piece of fresh meat for my dogs. But I 
think you can get used to anything when you have to; and 
it seems to me, on that battle day, I got to helping with the 
wounded before I knew it, and I was n't affected by what I 
saw at all. 

Most of the fighting was done just back of the town 
where the Yankees tried to force the Confederates from 
their position on Marye's Hill. Lines of cannon crowned the 
height, and the sides were covered with rifle-pits which con- 
cealed a host of sharpshooters, and at the base of the hill 
was a stone wall behind which crouched several regi- 
ments of infantry. Six assaults were made, but not a 
single Yankee could get beyond that wall. The Union 



138 Fredericksburg 

loss was twelve thousand, and ours less than half that 
number. 

You have no idea what a wreck this town was after the 
battle — so many buildings burned, and so many battered 
by the balls and shells, and so many of them pillaged. The 
soldiers went into the house of an old lady who lived the 
second block from us, and they took her haircloth parlor 
suite out into the street and some of the things were broken 
all to pieces. They pulled a lot of clothing out of the ward- 
robe, emptied the oil can and two or three cans of preserves 
onto the clothes, mopped 'em around, and threw 'em in a 
comer, I reckon they did the same thing in all the houses. 
They seemed to want to ruin whatever they could lay their 
hands on. I don't think they found much silver in their 
rummaging. Our people connived every way in the world 
to hide and keep that. 

I heard a man tell how at his house they made batter in a 
bureau drawer and opened the piano and poured the batter 
all over the wires. He never saw such a mess in his life. 
He'd refugeed, but he came back right after the battle to 
find out how things were lookin' at his place. He had a 
mirror that his daughters could see themselves in full 
length from head to foot, and the soldiers had busted that 
all to pieces, and they had taken an axe and split a ward- 
robe from end to end. He was a real ignorant old man, 
but he had sense enough to make plenty of money. Oh, 
yes indeed! 

It was the fall of '63 when we moved back to town. The 
place looked pretty desolate. There were a good many 
women here, but only a few men and those all old. Sup- 
plies were scanty and prices way up in G. We toasted 
wheat and rye and used it for coffee. Some one from the 



The Little Rebel 139 

country told me the other day that at his house they had 
drank wheat coffee ever since the war. They liked it better 
than the real coffee and thought it was much healthier. 
Another substitute for coffee was made out of sweet pota- 
toes. We peeled the potatoes and sliced them very thin, 
then toasted the slices in the oven and ground them up, 
and that potato coffee tasted splendid. 

The first year of the war Mother took a tin box that had 
two compartments, and filled one side with Java coffee, 
and the other with crushed loaf sugar. Each compartment 
had a lid and held about five pounds, I reckon. We'd just 
use the coffee once in a while when we wanted it for extra 
occasions. 

Once we went to Richmon', and Mother took her box 
of coffee and sugar along. The baggage master who put it 
on the train for her said, "You surely must have all your 
gold and silver in this, it is so heavy." 

" What I 've got in there is just as precious as gold to me," 
Maw said, and she told him what the box contained. 

We used to buy things of an old gentleman who ran the 
blockade. He never would tell how he managed it, but I 
know he went up to Alexandria to get the goods. He just 
brought shoes and drygoods and articles of that sort. To- 
ward the end of the war Mother got a pair of Congress 
gaiters from the old man. He said they would be two dol- 
lars in silver, or two hundred dollars in Confederate money. 
Mother said she did n't have the silver, so she paid him the 
two hundred dollars. About the same time she paid twen- 
ty-four dollars for a pound of sugar. My brothers went 
barefoot. They had good shoes, but they did n't want to 
wear them out because they were 'fraid they would n't get 
any more. 



140 Fredericksburg 

When Grant was fighting in this region in 1864 a boy 
roomed with us who carried newspapers and writing ma- 
terials on to the front to sell to the Northern soldiers. He 
went back and forth on horseback. One day he brought 
me a haversack of French patent leather and the skh't of a 
saddle that he'd picked up on the Wilderness battlefield. 
"You can make a pair of shoes out of these," he said. 

I took them to a shoemaker and paid twenty dollars to 
have him make me some shoes. The leather was very nice 
and soft, and I had those shoes yet after the war was over. 

A good many of the Northern wounded and stragglers 
came here at the time of the Wilderness fight. They'd 
hardly begun to arrive when some of the officers went to the 
stores and got all the casks of whiskey they could find and 
broke the heads and emptied the whiskey into the gutters. 
The officers were fearful, if the men got to drinking, they'd 
tear up the town. I remember looking out of the window 
and seeing some of the soldiers with cups and canteens 
trying to save what they could of the whiskey from the gut- 
ters, and I said," Maw, will you please look at that." 

At last the war ended, and Paw came home directly af- 
terward. He had bought a lot of tobacco in Richmon' just 
before the surrender, but lost it in the fire that burned the 
city. If it had escaped the fire he could have sold it for 
thirty-five thousand dollars. When he reached home he 
said, "Richmon' has gone up, my tobacco's gone up, and 
I'm goin' up." 

Pretty soon the Union troops were passing through the 
town going home North. There was cavalry, artillery, and 
men on foot. We had some nice meat, and we went to cook- 
ing for 'em. Mother and the servant and I sat up all one 
night cooking. We got ready ham and beef sandwiches and 



The Little Rebel 141 

coffee and pie and hot rolls and lightbread. My two little 
brothers stood at the window and sold the things. Father 
was in back of the boys watching to see that everything 
was all right. " The idea of my settin' here," he said, "and 
sellin' to Northern people who've whipped us!" 

I told him, "Don't say whipped — just overpowered." 

The men were pretty well worn out, and it seemed to be 
quite a treat to 'em to get soft bread. Well, that was not 
to be wondered at considering how long they'd been living 
on hardtack. 

One of the men had a mule that he said he'd sell us, sad- 
dle and all, for twenty-five dollars. It was the prettiest 
thing I ever laid my eyes on — just like a butter ball. Paw 
told him he s'posed he'd stole it, but the man said, "No, I 
only want to sell the mule because I can't conveniently 
take it North." 

Mother and I had the money, and we bought the mule. 
Father had rode a horse home, and now that we had the 
two creatures it gave us a little impetus. He rented a piece 
of ground and put in a crop of corn, and then he secured 
the position of bookkeeper in a flour mill, and we got along 
very well. 

We had a Northern man who was wounded in the Battle 
of the Wilderness staying at our house for three weeks after 
the battle. I was always telling him funny things. "You 
want to kill me laughing," he'd say. 

He was wounded in the cheek bone, and it hurt him to 
laugh. To retaliate and tease me, he'd say, "You'll marry 
a Yankee." 

"Never in the kingdom!" I'd declare. "I'm too much 
of a Rebel." 

Just before he left us an army friend of his who 'd called 



142 Fredericksburg 

to see him remarked to me: "I've seen you before. One 
day you were down by the river, and I was on the other 
side. You wore a brown dress and had a Uttle slat bonnet 
in your hand. I was looking through my field glasses." 

I recalled the time. Some men on horses across the river 
had called out: "Hello, sis! Want a cup of good coffee?" 

They thought I was a child, I reckon, I was such a little 
bit of a midget. 

"Want a hot biscuit?" I called back, and pointed to a 
cannon that was near me. 

It's curious, but after the war I met the Northern soldier 
who saw me that day through his field glasses as he looked 
across the Rappahannock, and we married. I've spent a 
good deal of my life since up in Connecticut, but I have n't 
become a Yankee. My friends there call me, "The Little 
Rebel." 



XVI 

The Colored Cooper ^ 

Me and my wife was both free born. We could have gone 
away befo' the battle, but we had a house hyar in Freder- 
icksburg and four small chil'en, and I had work in town 
makin' barrels. So we stayed all the whole time. There 
was n't many who did that. 

As soon as the Yankees got hyar the slaves begun to run 
away from their mistresses and masters. They went by 
hundreds. You 'd see 'em gittin' out of hyar same as a rab- 
bit chased by a dog. Some carried little bundles tied up, 
but they could n't tote much. Often one of the women 
would walk along carrying a child wrapped up in a blanket. 
Fifteen miles from hyar they got to the Potomac, and the 
Yankee gunboats would take 'em right to Washington. 
Then they 'd pile in wherever they could git. They never 
come back this way. 

A good many of the Rebel soldiers stole off, too, so they 
could git into the Yankee lines, and not have to fight. 

We had such cold weather that December when the bat- 
tle was fought that the ice formed quite thick on a pond up 
hyar in the early days of the month. I promised Mr. Roe, 
who carried on butchery, that I 'd help draw to fill his ice- 

^ That his years were many was evident in his stooping form and 
thin white hair, but he was still working. I visited him in the shop 
where he was making barrels as of yore, and he continued at his task 
while he told his story. 



144 Fredericksburg 

house. He was to start work on the 13th. The night before 
was cold — bitter cold. I wanted to be at the pond early, 
and when a noise waked me, after I 'd been asleep a good 
long time, I. thought it must be near about daybreak. So 
I got up and went to the barn and fed my horse. But what 
I 'd heard was the Yankees fixin' to come over hyar from 
the other side of the Rappahannock on pontoon bridges. 

Colonel Lang was camped up the lane, and pretty soon 
he marched right past my door with one thousand Con- 
federate troops. They went down in intrenchments along 
the river. Then the old signal gun went off, and there was 
somethin' doin'. I did n't know what it meant — a gun 
goin' off at that time in the morning. Lang killed about 
seventy-five men who were makin' the pontoon bridges — 
swept 'em off clean as a whistle — but later in the day the 
Yankees come across in their boats and swept him off. 

Early in the morning word was sent around that they 
was goin' to shell the town, and they done it, too. But I 
did n't git no warning and did n't know a thing of it till I 
saw people running. Some ran with their nightclothes on. 
They did n't have any time to play, I tell you. All that 
could, got out into the country and the woods was full of 
'em — white and colored. But I stayed in the town. I 
think there was two hundred Yankee cannon over the river 
. on the hills. The shelling begun about five o'clock, as near 
as I can come at it, and the gunners could shoot the bombs 
and balls just where they wanted to. I know two people 
was killed dead in bed that morning — an old man and an 
old woman. We had rough times hyar. I don't want any 
mo' of that bumbarding in this world. I don't want it in 
the next world either, if I 'm ever able to git there. 

Tom Kjiox who owned the hotel had a narrow escape. 




COLUKED REFUGEES (iOlNU XORTH 



The Colored Cooper 145 

He got up when the signal gun fired and put on his clothes 
as quick as he could and got out of town on foot. He left 
everything he had behind him, and he was hardly out of 
the house when a shell come in and split his pillow open. 
It did n't hurt the bed, but they tell me a knife could n't 
have cut that pillow into two parts any better than the 
shell did. The shell was lookin' for Mr. Knox, but it did n't 
git him. It would have split him open if he'd stayed there. 
Yes, fifteen or twenty minutes longer in his bed would 
have fixed him. 

The neighbors come into my house when the shells be- 
gun to fly. Oh! we had the greatest quantity of women and 
children there. The house was full. They all wanted to 
have plenty of company so if any of 'em got hurt the others 
could help 'em. By and by a solid shot — a twelve-pounder 
— come right through my house. The Yankees had been 
firin' a right smart while, and I s'pose the sun was 'bout 
half an hour high. I was settin' up by the fire with some of 
the others in my bedroom. The ball cut one of the big 
house timbers plumb in two, and I never saw so much dirt 
flyin' around in my life. It took the end off the bureau just 
as clean as you could with a circular saw, and it left dust 
and everything else all over the room as if some one had 
been sowin' seed. Ah, man! I never want to see that pass 
over no mo'. It was terrible. 

I had a splendid cellar under my house, and we all went 
down into that. We did n't have no breakfast. But I did 
n't bother my mind at all about that. I was n't hungry a 
bit. I was already filled up with skeer. The chil'en would 
have liked breakfast, but 'deed and they did n't git it. 
They was not so skeered as the grown folks because they 
did n't know the danger. The older people was just skeered 



146 Fredericksburg 

to death, all hands of 'em, and some was mo' uneasy 'bout 
the chil'en than they was 'bout themselves. We had a 
tejious time of it with nothin' to do but talk of how the 
shells was running. 

That was an awful day — awful day, but the firin' 
stopped up some by noon, and we all come up and took a 
peep. I went out in the back yard where I could look and 
see the Yankees like bees on them heights across the river. 
A ball had struck a haystack I had piled up in my lot, and 
I expected my horse would be killed tied right there in the 
stable, but he wa'n't hurt a bit. The town seemed to be 
deserted. I walked up as far as the corner, and looked up 
and down and could n't see a soul — man or woman, cat or 
dog. The neighbors stayed at our house until night, and 
then they went home and give the chil'en something to eat, 
I reckon. 

Next day the place was full of Yankee troops. One of the 
citizens had a good deal of whiskey in his cellar, and I had 
helped hide it. The cellar had a brick floor, and we took up 
a part of it and dug a hole. All the liquor was in jimmy- 
johns, and we put the whole parcel of 'em down in the 
ground, covered 'em up with dirt, and laid back the bricks. 
Nobody would have known anything was buried there if 
they 'd walked over that hyar cellar floor all day. Some one 
must have told, for the Irish brigade found the whiskey, 
and the men got so drunk they did n't know what they was 
doing. 

The Rebels was on Marye's Heights. That was a hot 
place — a hot place! The Yankees never had no chance to 
win there. They kept chargin' a stone wall at the foot of 
the Heights. But Lord 'a' mercy! they was all cut to pieces 
every time. Some got up to the wall so they could put their 



The Colored Cooper 147 

hands on it, but they could n't git no further. That wall 
still stands, and when there comes a rain they say the blood 
stains show on it even yet. 

One of the leading Southern generals in this fight was 
Stonewall Jackson — you've heard talk of him. He was 
a plague, he was a honey, old Stonewall was — he was a 
honey! He wanted his men to take off their pants and just 
have on drawers so he'd know 'em. They would n't do it, 
and I don't blame 'em. They did n't have much to take 
off nohow, I reckon, and it was winter weather. Jackson's 
men did n't wear no shoes. Instead, they had on each foot 
a piece of leather tied up behind and before with leather 
strings. I found one of those foot protectors where they 
camped. Old Stonewall was a terrible man. He did n't 
think anything of marching his troops thirty mile in a 
night. They had the hardest time of any soldiers I heard 
of in the war. Ha, ha! do you know what kind of food he 
gave 'em? Three times a day each man got one year of 
corn — a raw year of com. They did n't have to stop 
marching to eat it, but gnawed and chewed it as they 
tramped along. 

I went to the battlefield and took a look around when 
things got cool, and I can tell you I don't never want to see 
no mo' war in my day. The battlefield 'peared like some- 
body had been doin' something — it 'peared awful bad! 
The dead was scattered around, and some looked like they 
was fast asleep. When a man had been hit by a shell that 
exploded it bust him up in such little pieces you would n't 
'a' known he was ever the shape of a man. A good many 
bodies was all laid in a row side of the stone wall with blan- 
kets over their faces. I saw some old gray fellers among 
the dead. They had no business to be in the war at their 



148 Fredericksburg 

age. Out in front of the stone wall was the Yankees where 
they'd fallen one 'pon top of t' other. 

The Southern troops took possession of the town after 
the battle. Some of 'em was so smoked up I did n't know 
whether they was white men or black men. They was 
nasty and dirty, and their clothes was dreadful. If a Rebel 
wanted a good pair of pants or shoes he had to shoot a 
Yankee to git 'em. Every Union man that was killed was 
stripped, and you often could n't tell the Rebels in their 
borrowed clothing from the Northern soldiers. 

A heap of 'em on both sides suffered mightily for food. 
Some had the rashions but no chance to cook what they 
had. 'Bout noon one day two Rebel soldiers come up 
to our house off of the river, and they said to my wife, 
"Aunty, we've got some fish we want you to fry." 
' They'd been on picket duty. The Rebel pickets was on 
this side of the river and the Yankee pickets on the other 
side layin' there watchin' one another, and these fellers had 
put in some of their time fishing. They 'd caught a mess of 
herrings, but they did n't have no salt nor nothing to 
cook 'em with. So my wife took a piece of meat and 
fried the herrings nicely and gave the men some bread 
to eat with their fish. Their rashions could n't have been 
much. Some of the soldiers pulled up wild onions and 
e't 'em. 

I had to work for Confederate money during the war, 
and I know that one time I paid five hundred dollars for a 
barrel of flour. Well, that old Confederate money wa'n't 
no account to me. It did n't amount to anything, and I 
did n't care what I paid. I had a hundred dollars of it when 
the war ended. There was some one dollar bills, some fives, 
and some tens. Union soldiers going North liked to have a 



The Colored Cooper 149 

few of those bills to take home to show to their wives, and 
I just divided mine out among 'em. 

We used to pick up bayonets, guns, and other things 
regular out on the battlefield, but the woods have been pil- 
laged so we don't find 'em any mo'. Occasionally, though, 
bones are found when digging is being done in the back 
streets. 

There's a national cemetery now on the slope of Marye's 
Heights beyond the stone wall, and you could n't give some 
people in this town fifty dollars to go in the cemetery at 
night. Once we had a kind of public meetin' hyar for elec- 
tion, and the candidate had furnished a jug of whiskey and 
a little crackers and cheese, or something like that for re- 
freshments. I s'pose there was a gallon in the jug, and it 
had n't been passed to mo' than two or three when a feller 
grabbed it and ran. O man! there was excitement then. 
Every one taken out after him. But he ran to the cemetery 
and jumped over the fence, and the rest stopped right there. 
They certainly were feared of ghos'es. He had whiskey for 
a number of days, and I guess he drank it all himself. No- 
body remembered sharing it with him. 



XVII 
A Slave Woman's Troubles^ 

I BELONGED to Mr. Sam Gordon, and I nursed and took 
entire care of his sister's children. They'd always go with 
me everywhere I went, and I loved 'em, and they were jus' 
as dear to me as my own. They e't with me and slep' in the 
room with me, and the little ones, up to three or four or five 
years old, slep' in my bed. I dressed 'em and waited on 'em, 
and their mother jus' come to see 'em when she felt like it. 
In them times, if the family went traveling, I went, too. 
I was kep' busy, and I seldom had any Sunday at all. But 
I had a good mistress and master. They did n't push their 
slaves in work, and they did n't put 'em to work young — 
not till they were fifteen. 

I was raised right in the house with the white people. 
My mistress raised me jus' like she raised her own children, 
except that I did n't get no book education, no, sir. I 
wish to the land I had some. But my old mistress learned 
me how to work and to be clean and genteel. When night 
come she'd say: "Now I'm goin' to learn you a few things 
for your own benefit. You'll thank me when you're big." 

^ She was a spectacled, kindly old body of whom every one in Fred- 
ericksburg spoke highly. All her family had the reputation of being 
self-respecting and industrious. Her daughter's house, where she 
lived, was very neat and suggestive of prosperity. There I spent an 
evening in the kitchen. The old woman sat in a comer by the stove. 
It was plain that she enjoyed recalling her early experiences, even if 
there had been much of sorrow and hardship in them. 



A Slave Woman's Troubles 151 

Sometimes she'd keep me working till about ten or 
*leven o'clock. I did n't like to work at night, but I 'm glad 
I got to understand how to act and how to weave, spin, 
wash, iron, sew, knit, and everything of that kind. 

I was nearly forty years old when the war begun. I'd 
been married a right smart while and was living in a cabin 
with my own family. Mr. Gordon's place was ten miles be- 
low the town. Befo' the battle it was jus' like a city. The 
Southern soldiers were camped all around us, and they had 
little old stoves back in the woods to keep them warm and 
to do their cooking. Often they'd exchange some of their 
army food for what I had. They'd bring me a bag of flour 
and I 'd give 'em corn meal for it, and I 'd let 'em have milk 
and buttermilk and all such things. Perhaps they would 
n't have any tea or coffee to use with their sugar, and 
they'd give the sugar to me. A good deal of the time they 
did n't have salt, and they were so pitiful I felt right sorry 
for 'em. Yes, the Southern soldiers were hungry. They e't 
every chicken we had, and a cavalryman got our hog — 
took it right out of the pen, then cut it in two, and hung 
half on each side of his horse and rode off. 

I would n't let the soldiers come into the house, and my 
mistress would say, "Fanny, you ought not to be so hard- 
hearted." 

"Well," I said, "I ain' gwine let 'em come in. I have a 
whole parcel of children hyar, and those men are lousy. 
They'd be droppin' their lice all around. Besides, the first 
thing they'd do they'd pick up my two little children that 
are twins and want to take 'em out to camp." 

One day a soldier started to walk in, and I said, "Yo* 
cain' come in hyar." 

He asked for a drink. 



152 Fredericksburg 

"What's the matter with yo' neck?" I says. "YouVe 
got diptheria. I cain' let yo' drink out of any of my 
cups." 

So he went along to the next house, and drank out of a 
cup there. Some of the family used it afterward, and two 
of the children died of diptheria. Oh! we had terrible times 
in the war. 

I tol' yo' we lost our chickens. Some Northern gunboats 
come up the Rappahannock a few days later and knocked 
off two or three tops of houses near hyar. A number of the 
gunboat people come to my house. I heard a rap on the do' 
and looked out, and there was three of 'em, standin' around 
the do'step and a whole row mo' was settin' on the plank 
fence next the gate. One of the three at the do' spoke and 
said they would like to buy a few chickens. 

" Gen'lemen," I said, "there 's the henhouse. Walk right 
in and he'p yo'selves." 

Our soldiers had done wringed the chickens' heads off, 
and when the men looked into the henhouse, they called 
back, "We don't see anything hyar but chickens' heads." 

"No," I says, "the Southern soldiers done took all my 
chickens and turkeys and geese, and put 'em in a bag and 
carried 'em off. That's what they done — and me with 
seven children to feed." 

Then one of the men down on the fence said, " Come on, 
boys; no game hyar." 

Another time some Confederates come to the house late 
in the night. I was the only one up, and the commander 
said, "Where is yo' husband?" 

"In bed," I answered. 

"Well," he said, "we want him to show us the way to yo' 
master's house." 



A Slave Woman's Troubles 153 

So I toF my husband to git up. 

He had on a white nightshirt, and he was skeered and 
forgot to take it off when he put on his pants. They went 
along up the lane, and he was all the time watchin' for a 
chance to git away. Pretty soon he dodged through a gate, 
slipped his white nightshirt off and ran. They could n't see 
him in the dark after he got that shirt off, and he heard the 
officer sayin', "Where in thunder did the nigger go?" 

He come home, and they did n't trouble him no mo'. 

The Northern soldiers lay over the river. Our men had 
burnt down the Fredericksburg bridges, and there wa'n't 
nothin' but a scow to git across from one side to the other. 
But when those Yankees got ready to come across they 
came. They were the wildest people I ever see. While the 
battle lasted we could hear the cannon and the musketry. 
Oh, yes! and it was a perfect judgment. The hills back 
hyar were jus' washed in blood, and the town was all filled 
up with the wounded. 

The signal corps had a telegraph in a shop at our place, 
and they got the news every minute. Old Mr. Cobb lived 
up on the hill. He had been worth a million dollars, but 
now he'd spent it all and had to do his own garden work. 
He was deef, too, as yo' had to holler at him to make him 
hear. Mr. Gordon was gwine to carry him the news of the 
battle, and he started to ride up there on his horse. It was 
a right smart ways, and some very bad soldiers from North 
Carolina — Tarheels they was called — was up in the 
woods. Those soldiers wanted to have a little fun with Mr. 
Gordon, and they threw rocks at him and knocked off his 
hat. So he turned back and come home a-flyin'. 

When the battle ended and I heard that the Union army 
had been defeated, I could n't believe it. My mistress said 



154 Fredericksburg 

to me, "Yo' know the Northern soldiers cain' fight ns 
hyar." 

But I said: " Ain' God the captain? He started this war, 
and he's right in front. He may stop in his career and let 
yo' rest up a little bit now, but our Captain ain' never been 
beaten. Soon He '11 start out ag'in, and yo '11 hear the bugle 
blow, and He '11 march on to victory. Where the Bible says, 
'Be not afraid; yo' shall set under yo' own vine and fig 
tree,' that means us slaves,- and I tell yo' we're goin' to be a 
free people. You-all will be gittin' yo' pay sho' for the way 
you've done treated us pore black folks. We been killed 
up like dogs, and the stripes you've laid on us hurt jus' as 
bad as if our skin was white as snow. But I ain' gwine to 
run away or frow my children in the river as some slaves 
have, for I 'm as certain this war will set us free as that I 
stand hyar." 

I tol' her jus' what I thought, and my mistress said, 
"Fanny, you is foolish," and my master said, "You ain't 
got no sense." 

And I said to my master, "When I was a young girl yo' 
sold ninety-six people at one time to pay a debt." 

Then I sat down and cried, and the white people stood 
there and laughed at me. "Lord," I said, "I'd rather be 
dead than have my children sold away from me." 

They sold my brother and three sisters down in Ala- 
bama, and I was left entirely. My brother would go 
around and preach, and the gen'leman that owned him 
did n't want him to preach and would n't have no meetin's 
or preachin' on the place at all. So they beat my brother 
and whipped him with a cowskin. That killed him tereckly. 
He could n't stand it. He was not used to that up hyar. 
His master was one bad man. 



A Slave Woman's Troubles 155 

My oldest sister was owned by that same man, and she 
ran away from him. She had a baby boy that she left be- 
hind with a daughter who had been used so bad it made her 
crazy. While her mother was gone the baby died. They 
found him there in the cabin presently, and the foolish 
daughter said, "He's been sleepin' a week, and I'm glad 
of it, because I ain't bothered with him." 

She was a field hand, but not much good. Once they put 
her to ploughing and gave her an old sleepy mule. The 
mule wanted to go slow, and she wanted to go fast. So she 
put a nail in a stick and struck him, and he jus' jerked the 
plough and her, too. That made her mad, and she drove 
him into a hornet's nest. The hornets lit all over him, and 
he ran. " Go to Jerusalem! " she said, and she give him the 
plough. He went jus' sailin', plough and all, as far as she 
could see him. 

The overseer scolded her and said, "I'm goin' to kill 
you." 

"Kill me then," she said, but he did n't do anything to 
her at all. 

After the war we was free and could go where we pleased, 
and I talked with my husband about movin' to Fredericks- 
burg. He said, "If yo' live in the city yo' have to pay for 
the breath you breathe." 

But I toF him, "Yo' have to pay for yo' breath any- 
where," and I got him to come because they had good 
schools hyar. Down there the children had to walk three 
miles to school. As soon as we moved I got all the washin' 
I could do, and me and my husband worked and got this 
house. I would be up half of the night ironing, but I did n't 
mind that, for I was used to long hours. About the only 
time I 'd leave my work was when some sick person needed 



156 Fredericksburg 

my help. Once a neighbor woman had dropsy, and she 
was sick even unto death. Her children were wild and 
rattle-brained, and for quite a while I went to her house 
every night. 

Some claimed that after dark they could see people in 
the soldiers' cemetery goin' along without any heads. 
Others said the ghos'es looked like cows or horses. Some 
told, too, of hearin' a band playin' over where the army 
had camped. The strangest story of all was that way about 
midnight a man in soldier's clothes was in the habit of 
ridin' a horse through the street back of the depot. People 
said they could see his buttons and everything, and that 
they could hear the horse's hoofs — ker-flop-up, ker-flop- 
up — jus' as plain as could be. They'd hear him a while, 
and then they would n't hear a thing. 

My husband said to me: " I should think you'd be afraid 
to go to that sick woman's in the dark the way you do. 
Some night that ghos '11 skeer you to death." 

" I 'm gwine on jus' the same," I said, "for I never knew 
the dead to hurt the livin'. That ghos' can keep on with 
his racket and go on about his business." 

So I done my duty, though sometimes I heard things and 
felt kind o' funny about it. 

Of co'se people are often skeered by what they imagine. 
Once we had a revival hyar, and a young man attended the 
meetin's who could n't seem to git religion. So the old folks 
tol' him he sho' would git religion if he'd go and pray in the 
woods away from the wickedness of the town. He thought 
he'd try it, and he went way out toward the Wilderness 
onto an old battlefield. Then he got down on his knees, and 
he'd started praying when something tol' him to look be- 
hind him. He looked, and there was a skull, and he got up 



'A Slave Woman's Troubles 157 

and flew. He did n't try to git religion no mo', and he ain' 
got it yet — no, indeed ! 

There certainly was spirits in ol' times. I heai*d of a 
house where every night the china and other things on the 
sideboard kep' up such a ratthng that the people who lived 
there could n't hardly sleep. "What is anybody gwine to 
do with this house?" they said. 

By and by they went to some ol' prophet, and he had 'em 
turn every do' the other way up and make new keyholes. 
The ghos'es could n't find their way in after that, and the 
things on the sideboard stopped rattlin'. 

I 'm ninety years ol' now. When I was little some of the 
colored people lived till they got mighty near two hundred 
years ol'. But they're weaker these days and don't live 
half so long. Hyar I am crippled up so I cain' do anything, 
and I cain' see hardly at all. But never mind, I can take 
my stick and walk. 

I 've had twelve children and they all growed up. I ain't 
had no trouble with 'em. They were good children, and I 
call that a blessing. I learned 'em all to love the way of sal- 
vation and to hate the ways of sin. Now I 've got twenty- 
two grandchildren and five great grandchildren. 

I 'fessed religion when I was fifteen years ol', and I got 
a strong belief in the almighty God, our Captain. He knew 
I meant to treat everybody right and myself right. So He 
let me live till I was ol', and He's goin' to take me to hea- 
ven. I ain't afflicted, and there's nothin' I ask for that I 
don't git it. I 'm trustin' in the Lord. When night comes I 
kneel down and say: "I thank yo' Lord, that I've passed 
through one mo' day. Now I lay my head on the pillow, 
and I pray yo' will enable me to go through the night and 
see the light of day ag'in." 



158 Fredericksburg 

When morning comes I say: "Well, Lord, I'm hyar yet, 
no pain, and I don't wish nobody no harm in this world. 
I'm too ol' for that. I take it all with patience." 

I 'm happy, and I can't thank Him enough, and soon I '11 
cease from trouble, and then I will reap my reward. 



XVIII 
The Carriage-Maker's Boy ^ 

Lee crossed the Potomac early in June, 1863, and the 
battle was fought here on the first three days of July. I 
was only seven or eight years old, but you know when a boy 
is that age things stick in his memory as they don't when 
he grows older. I could n't tell you nearly as well about 
what happened a couple of years ago as I can tell about 
what I saw and did at the time of that battle. 

When the war began this was a town of between three 
and four thousand inhabitants. It was a trading center, 
and there was a flourishing stove-manufactory located 
here, and quite a business was done in making carriages. 
My father had a two-story carriage shop near our house 
on the borders of the town. 

We're only a few miles from the division line between 
the North and the South, and we were a good deal exposed 
to raids. Again and again we'd get a report: "The Rebels 
are coming! The Rebels are coming! " and any one that had 
stock would hurry to get it out of the way so it would n't 
be carried off by the enemy. You'd see the farmers one 
week running away with their stock and the next week 
coming back with it. 

1 He had followed his father's trade, and I chatted with him in his 
shop amid a variety of vehicles, one of which he was painting. At the 
time of the battle he had been only a little fellow and his aspect was as 
yet that of a man still in middle life. 



160 Gettysburg 

I had two older brothers nearly men grown, and they 
went off with our horse several times; but the alarms 
proved to be mostly false, and at last Father said, "Boys, 
don't you go again until I tell you to go." 

It got to be the 26th of June. That afternoon Father 
went up street, and in a few minutes he was back in a great 
hurry, and said, "The Rebels are right out west of the 
town coming in this direction." 

So the boys hitched into a buggy and drove off as fast as 
they could go. They wanted to get on the other side of the 
Susquehanna River. There we thought they'd be safe. It 
was a forty mile ride, and they had n't been gone a great 
while when some of the Rebels came galloping down our 
street — a whole lot of 'em. They were after the people 
who were flying with their stock. 

Just one square above us lived a butcher who had a little 
Dutch feller by the name of Charlie Supann working for 
him. He sent Charlie off with his horse before our boys got 
started, but they overtook Charlie out here by the toll- 
gate house. Charlie was drivin' along pretty leisurely, and 
they told him he 'd better hurry. 

"But my orders are not to drive fast," he said. 

Well, our boys went on and left him behind, and the 
Rebels caught him and took his horse. While they were 
parleying with him our boys hurried along as fast as they 
could, and they escaped. They got to the big covered 
bridge at Columbia over the Susquehanna, and they told 
us afterward that people were going through there with 
their horses just like a cavalcade — chasing through one 
after the other all the time. At the far end were some 
Union officials stopping every one that had a good horse, 
and if the horse suited 'em they'd take it and give in return 



The Carriage-Maker's Boy 161 

a slip of paper entitling the owner to pay from the govern- 
ment. 

Right in front of our boys was a young feller on an awful 
nice horse, and the officer said, "Is that a good riding 
horse?" 

"Yes," the feller says, "Father keeps him for that." 

"Then you jump right off," the officer said. "He's just 
what I want." 

Next he spoke to our boys and asked if theirs was a rid- 
ing horse. 

"No, you can't do anything with her for riding," they 
said. 

"Then get out of this," he told 'em. "We don't want 
her." 

They were lucky to get across the bridge when they did, 
for the pursuing Rebels were close behind, and the Federals 
burnt part of the bridge just before the enemy got there to 
keep them from going farther. 

Our boys were now strangers in a strange country. But 
they soon located on a farm with a man who was starting 
harvesting, and they got right out in the harvest field, and 
went to work. 

The next excitement that I remember at Gettysburg was 
the arrival of four thousand Union cavalry on the night of 
June 30th. They camped west of the town on Seminary 
Ridge, a low hill that got its name from a theological Sem- 
inary located there. South of the town was a similar hill 
known as Cemetery Ridge, which had Little and Big 
Round Top at one end, and Gulp's Hill on the banks of 
Rock Grick at the other end. 

Not far from my father's shop was another carriage shop 
that was no longer used for its original purpose. Hay was 



162 Gettysburg 

stored in it, and we boys often went in there to play. A 
number of us were in there on the morning of July 1st. 
You know how boys would do — well, we had a lot of fun 
jumping on the hay. But pretty soon we came outside to 
watch some soldiers and older town boys riding the cavalry 
horses out north of the town to the crick to water 'em. 
Then we went back into the old carriage shop and got into 
the hay business again. We were still at it when my sister 
ran in there and said to me: "You're to come home now. 
The fighting has begun." 

Yes, the battle had begun, but it was a small affair at 
first, for both of the armies were very much scattered. 
Some of the troops were forty miles away, and they kept 
arriving all that day and the following night. 

I went home with my sister, but some of the other boys 
tried to get where they could see things. 
^ By and by a Union officer came through the street warn- 
ing every one that our men were falling back toward the 
town, and the bullets were likely to be flying right among 
the houses. 

"I'm goin' to stay here to watch our buildings," my fa- 
ther says to Mother, "but you'd better get to some safer 
place." 

" Well, I guess I '11 go," Mother says. 

My sister and I went with her, and my sister carried 
along some of our belongings in a basket. We were passing 
the schoolhouse when a man who was a cousin of mine says 
to my mother, "Aunt Susan, where are you goin'?" 

She says, "I don't know where I'm goin'." 

"Quite a number of us are in the schoolhouse cellar," he 
said. "You'd better come in there, too." 

But instead she went on up what we call Baltimore Hill 



The Carriage-Maker's Boy 163 

to the part of the town that was farthest away from the 
fighting. A woman standing in a door there spoke to 
mother and said, "Susan, you'd better stop right here 
with me." 

"Lizzie, I guess I will," my mother said. 

Pretty soon the Union artillery came up the street and 
went down over the hill about as fast as the horses could 
go. They anchored out here just south of the town on 
Cemetery Ridge. The next we knew the street was filled 
with Rebel cavalry, and we rushed to the cellar. The cellar 
had a door out in front on the pavement, and a Rebel lifted 
it up and said to some of his comrades, "It's full of Yan- 
kees down here." 

" There is n't anybody in this cellar but women and chil- 
dren," my sister said, and he let down the door. 

We stayed where we were till things quieted down late 
in the day, and then Father came to get us. He said that 
after we left he had gone up in the cupola of the Lutheran 
Church with several other men. They watched from there 
till the Union troops began to run, and then they took 
refuge in the cellars of the houses. 

On our way back I see some dead horses and a number of 
dead men layin' around on the pavement. 

The enemy had possession of the town, and just before 
dark, when Mother was out behind the house feeding the 
chickens, one of the Rebels came along and asked her to 
lend him an ax. 

"Will you bring it back?" she said as she handed it to 
him. 

"Oh, yes, indeed!" he told her, but he never did. 

We slept that night on the parlor floor. We did n't 
know what might happen, and it seemed safer there than 



164 Gettysburg 

in our beds upstairs. And I slept all right — oh, yes! a kid 
can sleep when older people can't. 

Two doors from our house lived a Presbyterian preacher, 
and the next day he said to us: "Come over to our cellar. 
It's got a floor in it." 

So we spent that day in his cellar. There was no very 
fierce fighting until the latter part of the afternoon. Then 
General Sickles out on the Union left made an advance and 
was driven back with great loss of life across the "Valley of 
Death." 

Night came, and we went home to sleep again on the par- 
lor floor. But we returned to the preacher's cellar in the 
morning. After the war he went around lecturing as an 
"Eye-Witness of the Battle of Gettysburg." Well, he did 
go up several times and look out of the trap-door. 

Our second day in his cellar was drawing to a close when 
some one came and said, " The Rebels are gone, and the 
battle seems to be over." 

That gave us courage to come out. I was a little boy 
with pockets in my pants, and I went along the street and 
filled those pockets with bullets that lay scattered about. 
Right square in front of our house, in the middle of the 
street, was a dead mule. He'd been in the artillery out 
on Cemetery Ridge, and when he was wounded they cut 
him loose, and he had wandered into town. As he went on 
he got weaker and weaker till he tumbled over and died. 
Several Rebel sharpshooters had stationed themselves in 
our shop, and the Union cannon made it a target to drive 
'em out. I think eleven shells went into the place. It was 
full of finished buggies and carriages, and vehicles that 
were being repaired. The shells knocked some of 'em into 
kindling wood. 



The Carriage-Maker's Boy 165 

Day after day, following the battle, the army wagons 
were going out on the roads to gather up the government 
property that was strewn around on the battlefield. Men 
were busy, too, carousing around and getting together the 
crippled horses. Such of the horses as were n't likely to be 
of any further use in the army were disposed of here at 
sales. Some could hardly walk, and it was possible to buy 
a horse for as small a sum as twenty-five cents. 



XIX 

The Farmer's Son ^ 

The very month that the battle was fought I was nineteen 
years old. My people lived in a small stone house, just 
across Rock Creek from Gulp's Hill. 

On Monday night, June 29th, a neighbor called on us, 
and said : " The Rebel army is close by. Why, there's miles 
of campfires along the mountains back here." 

He went away with his horses that night, and my 
brother and I went off with ours. We rode about five 
miles down on the Baltimore Pike and stayed there till 
morning. Then a lot of Union cavalry passed along the 
pike in the direction of Gettysburg. We had n't a doubt 
but that they would stop the Rebels, and we returned 
home and put our horses in the stable. 

Wednesday morning came, and everything was appar- 
ently quiet. So we went to ploughing and grubbing just as 
if there was n't a Rebel this side of the Potomac River. 

One of the Gettysburg warehouse men at that time was a 
Mr. Spangler, and this man Spangler came out to our place 
that morning to buy some flour. We had fourteen barrels 

1 His age was close to the fourscore mark, but he was hearty and 
vigorous, and he spoke with ardor as he related those far-gone incidents 
of the battle. We had walked out to the borders of the town, and while 
we visited we sat on the parapet of a convenient stone bridge. Off 
across the fields was the place where he had dwelt as a boy, and he used 
his cane to point out various features of the vicinity that came into his 
story. 



The Farmer's Son 167 

of it on a wagon just as they had come from the mill, and 
Father agreed to hitch his horses to the wagon and take the 
flour right up to Spangler's warehouse. Spangler went off, 
and Father was soon ready to start with the load of flour. 
He was driving out of the yard when the first two shells of 
the Battle of Gettysburg were fired. But that did n't pre- 
vent him from going on with his load. When he said he'd 
do a thing he 'd just go and do it, no matter what the diffi- 
culties or the dangers. He got to the town square and met 
Spangler. The battle had broken loose and everything was 
in a tumult. "Suppose you take your load back home," 
Spangler said, and that was what Father did. 

The noise of the battle excited me greatly, and I went up 
on Gulp's Hill and climbed a tree and watched. The wea- 
ther had been quite dry, but the firing of the guns stirred 
up a rain, and it rained like sixty for a little spell. I was in 
my shirtsleeves, and of course the rain chilled me. So I 
come back to the house. There I found two or three town 
families had taken refuge with us. They 'd been scared out 
of their own homes, and you bet they did n't go back till 
the battle was over. Later in the day, when the Rebels 
drove our men through the town, there was a great rush of 
citizens out in our direction to get away. Some went empty- 
handed, and some carried clothes and stuff of that kind, 
and they were going like anything. They cut right across 
our farm and through our wheat that was just ready to 
harvest. 

We made those who stopped with us as comfortable as 
we could that night. The next morning we got up as usual 
about daylight, and there was nothing in sight to indicate 
the likelihood of anything but an ordinary, uneventful sum- 
mer day. We were all at sea and did n't know what was 



168 Gettysburg 

goin' to happen. On Gulp's Hill we could hear a sound of 
chopping and guessed that the soldiers were building breast- 
works. 

Some of the farm fencing had been pulled down the day 
before, and a neighbor's cows had got into our wheat. 
Father thought he would drive them out. The wheat was on 
a hillside, and he walked up the slope to get a good look over 
the field. On its upper side was a fringe of brush and trees 
and a stone wall with a couple of rails on top. He was 
within twenty or thirty feet of this fence when he discov- 
ered some men standing behind it. Father would have 
liked to get away, but he concluded he would be safer to 
go forward. One of the men was a Rebel general. He had 
glasses that he was looking through, and he asked Father 
about the Federals. Father told him he did n't know any- 
thing about them, and then he started for home, but the 
general said: "Oh, no! you can't go back. You'll have to 
stay inside of our lines." 

So they sent him to the nearest house, which happened 
to belong to Father's brother Dan. We did n't know what 
had become of him, and we did n't dare risk going to look 
for him. 

Shortly after mid-day I was standing in our lane with 
Mr. Martin, one of the townsmen who was stopping at our 
house, when here comes a Union soldier. He held his gun 
all ready to fire, and he was a savage-lookin' chap, too. 
"I had a notion to pull on you fellers," he said. "You 
wear gray clothes, and I did n't know but you were Rebels. 
My colonel wants to talk with you." 

We went with him down the lane to where the colonel 
was sitting on a rock beside the creek. He questioned us as 
to the location of the Rebels, but we were just as ignorant 



The Farmer's Son 169 

about that as a newborn babe. We were n't accustomed to 
armies, and we did n't understand their movements and 
had n't attempted to find out where they were or what 
they were doing. The soldier went back up the lane with 
us, and we'd gone about half way when Martin's little boy 
came running toward us waving his hands as if he wanted 
us to stop. He did n't say anything until he got to where 
we were. Then he told us some Rebels were at our house. 
At that our soldier dropped back, but we went on and 
found two Southern soldiers in our kitchen. They were 
after food, and we let 'em have some. 

The latter part of the afternoon we had just sat down to 
supper when the battle opened out right close by. We 
did n't finish eating. I went upstairs and looked out of a 
gable window. Some of our men were in the orchard de- 
ployed behind the trees. They'd take and load their guns 
and fire and then fall back. They were only a skirmish 
line, and did n't pretend to fight the Rebels, who had cut 
loose on them at a terrific rate. 

Presently, by George! zip went a bullet right past my 
nose. I thought it was just a chance shot until later I was 
down in the kitchen, and a big Rebel came walking in. 
"Who was firin' out of the gable window at our soldiers 
when they were passin' here?" he asked. 

Mr. Martin spoke up and said: "Nobody thought of 
such a thing. It's doubtful if there's a gun in the house." 

"Well, I saw somebody up there," the man said, "and I 
took a shot at him." 

I knew then how that bullet happened to come so close 
to me. 

We saw the Rebels driving our men across the open fields 
to the woods. Every time they got within a couple of rods 



170 Gettysburg 

of a rail fence* they'd lie flat on the ground, except a few 
who would run forward and jerk the fence down. Then the 
rest would jump up, and on they'd go. The sound of the 
volleys they fired was just like you'd take a handful of 
gravel and throw it on a roof. They yelled like the mischief 
when they charged. I could n't distinguish any words, but 
it was kind of an ugly yell. 

Soon the wounded began to be brought back. They laid 
'em on the floor of our kitchen, and up in the barn, and out 
in the yard. Some were groaning and others would swear. 
The sight of the first wounded man was dreadful, but it is 
remarkable how quickly one gets hardened to such things. 
In a little while I could see a man's leg sawed off, or 
his head sawed off, for that matter, without being dis- 
turbed. 

I talked with a wounded North Carolina man. He spoke 
sort of regretfully of the war. "We got nothing against 
you people," he said, ''but the war came on and we were 
forced to go.'.' 

Beside our kitchen wall was a big half hogshead that 
water flowed into from a spring, and the Rebels were all the 
time coming to fill their canteens there. They were seen by 
the Yankees, who began shelling 'em. The shells would 
strike in the meadow and throw up the dirt, and one went 
through the seat of a horserake in the orchard. Another 
came into the kitchen. A Rebel was leaning against the 
doorframe, and the shell cut off the jamb opposite and 
keeled him over into the yard. But he picked himself up 
and walked in brushing the dust off his trousers, no more 
concerned than if the accident was a mere trifle. The 
shell went into the chimney and exploded and scattered 
some pretty big stones among the wounded men lying on 



The Farmer's Son 171 

the floor. But that did n't seem to alarm them. They made 
no ado whatever. 

After a while the firing ceased and three ambulances 
came to get the wounded at our place. They drove in 
around our hogpen, and the drivers had got out when the 
shells began to fly again. Immediately the drivers jumped 
back in and went off in a great hurry. A little major came 
into the house and asked for some red cloth to make a hos- 
pital flag, and Mother got him a piece. He tied the cloth 
to a stick and had a soldier climb up a ladder and nail it on 
the roof so our men would stop their firing in that direction. 
"Those Yankees are a lot of brutes or they would n't shell 
ambulances," he said to me. 

"Well," I said, "that's no worse than what your fellers 
did at Chancellorsville when they set the woods on fire and 
burnt our wounded." 

It was kind of risky for me to talk so, for he could have 
put me out of the way, and that 's all there would have been 
of it. 

After dark that evening they put blankets up to the win- 
dows so the lights would n't be seen and perhaps be fired at 
by the Federals. Nine o'clock came, and then, to our sur- 
prise, in walked Father escorted by a Rebel soldier. 

Friday morning the wounded were still on the place, and 
across the lane was a bunch of six or eight Union prisoners 
lying asleep. By and by a Rebel came into the room where 
our folks were and asked, "Who's the man of the house?" 

" I am," Father says. 

" I 'm goin' to take the first horse inside of your stable," 
the feller said, "and here's one hundred and twenty-five 
dollars to pay for him." 

"Well, all right," Father says, "I can't help myself. 



172 Gettysburg' 

You'll take the horse anyway. I guess it don't matter 
whether you pay or not. Confederate money ain't very 
valuable." 

"That money '11 be just as good as yours after this bat- 
tle," the feller said. 

Father took it, and we've had it ever since. The bills 
were new and nice, and they're nice yet. 

Later that day the Rebels told us they were goin' to 
place a battery on the knoll back of our buildings, and we 
had better move out. So we gathered up a few of our things 
and went to Uncle Dan's. We were at his house when the 
two armies cannonaded each other in the afternoon over 
beyond the town. That was something terrific. I declare! 
I just thought the earth would go down. It did n't sound 
good to the soldiers either. Lots of 'em sneaked away from 
the ranks, and I '11 tell you this much — there are skedad- 
dlers out of every fight. Oh, by gosh ! yes! I found that out, 
and there wa'n't no distinction in that respect between the 
two armies. Some of the Rebel officers came and hunted 
the men up. "Why ain't you with your regiment?" they 
said. 

"We don't know where our regiment is," the men re- 
plied. 

"Well, you go find it," the officers told 'em. But the fel- 
lers would contrive not to get back till the danger was 
over. 

The Rebels left after the third day's fight, and I heard 
their wagons going all night. Next morning we went back 
home and found two Rebels in our shed eating chicken. 
They seemed to think it was time for them to get out of 
there, and they slipped away down the lane. 

Pretty soon our soldiers began to arrive on the farm, and 



The Farmer's Son 173 

Mother went to bakin' pancakes to give 'em. She made the 
pancakes out of flour and salt. The Rebels had taken 
everything else in the food line. Oh, bless you, yes! they 
just took all that they could make use of. The whole house 
was mussed up and turned upside down. It looked like 
they'd gone to the bureau drawers and pulled 'em out and 
dumped what was in 'em on the floor. They took only a 
part of our flour, but they got all our meat and all our 
chickens, and our five horses. Our field of wheat was trod- 
den down, and so was our grass and oats. The soldiers had 
dropped their guns here and there, and we often mowed 
into those guns with our scythes afterward. At first we 
thought we'd lost our cattle. They strayed away during 
the battle, and there seemed small chance of our seeing 
them again, but we got them together in a few days. The 
thing that troubled us most was the being left without 
horses. They were a dead loss to us, and besides it was a 
great handicap not to have 'em for working the farm. 
Father was a man who did n't often say anything, but 
when we came home after the battle and looked around 
he said, "I feel just like starting off and never looking 
back." 

My mother was subject to severe attacks of headache, 
and she had one on that Saturday. In the evening she said 
to me, " I guess you'll have to go to the doctor's and get me 
some medicine." 

So I went to town, and I found the streets barricaded 
and our fellers uncertain whether the Rebels had gone for 
good or whether another attack would be made. By the 
time I got home it was dark, and the soldiers on picket 
duty around our buildings called out, "Who's coming?" 
But they let me pass when I told 'em I belonged there. 



174 Gettysburg 

We had found two dead Rebels lying back of our barn, 
and no one came to bury 'em till late the next day. They 'd 
been left with a blanket spread over 'em. One had bis 
thumb and every finger on his right hand shot off. 

At the house next to ours on the road to town a Rebel 
sharpshooter had climbed up in a tree in the yard and 
buckled himself fast to a limb with his belt. He was pick- 
ing off our men, and of course it was n't easy for them to 
make out where he was because the thick leaves hid him. 
But at last they noticed a puff of smoke, when he'd sent a 
bullet in among 'em, and don't you forget it — that was the 
last shot he fired. They aimed at the place the smoke came 
from and killed him, and after the battle, I '11 be dog-goned 
if he was n't still in the tree hanging by his belt. 

I went over to Gulp's Hill Sunday. They were burying 
the dead there in long narrow ditches about two feet deep. 
They'd lay in a man at the end of the trench and put in the 
next man with the upper half of his body on the first man's 
legs, and so on. They got 'em in as thick as they could and 
only covered 'em enough to prevent their breeding disease. 
All the pockets of the dead men were turned out. Probably 
that was done by the soldiers who did the burying. They 
thought they might find a ring, or money, or something 
else of value. 

A neighbor of ours — old Mr. Tawney — came to get 
some flour on Tuesday, and he said, "Over here in the 
woods I found a dead man." 

So Father and I took a mattock and a shovel and went 
along with Mr. Tawney to the spot where he'd come across 
the body. There it was, all bloated up, seated leaning 
against a tree. We had to make the grave a rod or so away 
on account of the tree roots. It was impossible to handle 



The Farmer's Son 175 

the man to get him there, he was so decayed like, and we 
hitched his belt to his legs and dragged him along, and no 
sooner did we start with him than his scalp slipped right off. 
We just tm^ned him in on his side and covered him with 
earth. 

That was awful, was n't it? Well, the whole fighting 
business is awful; and I'm a-goin' to tell you this — war is 
a reflection on Christianity and civilization. It seems to 
me, in the case of nearly every war, after each side has done 
its worst and perhaps fought to the point of exhaustion and 
bankruptcy, they go back to the original question and be- 
gin to settle it by reason, good sense, and so on. Really, 
they might as well have done that in the first place without 
the terrible slaughter. 



XX 

The School Teacher ^ 

My father was a justice of the peace, and I was a teacher in 
the town schools. Our home was here on Baltimore Hill not 
far from where I live now. The sentiment in Gettysburg 
was strongly Union, but at the same time we had in the 
community a good many Democrats, or Copperheads as we 
called them, who naturally affiliated with the South. They 
were not very open in upholding the Southern cause, but 
just seemed to think the South was right, and we often 
squabbled on that subject. 

Raids and rumors of raids were frequent. Whenever we 
saw a farmer come into town on horseback, or in a wagon, 
leading a couple of horses we knew he had heard that a raid 
was imminent. It seemed to be the great worry of the 
farmers that their horses would be taken. 

Every report of raiding, too, would set the darkies to mi- 
grating, they were so afraid they'd be carried off into slav- 
ery. They looked very ragged and forlorn, and some exag- 
gerated their ills by pretending to be lame, for they wanted 
to appear as undesirable as possible to any beholder who 
might be tempted to take away their freedom. That illus- 
trates the natural ingenuity of the race. 

During the month preceding the battle we were excited 

* She was a refined, elderly woman living in one of the comfortable 
homes in the better part of the town. There I talked with her in the 
parlor. 



The School Teacher 177 

all the time. The dangers of our situation kept us in con- 
stant turmoil, and not much work was done. We were like 
Micawber "waiting for something to turn up," or like those 
people the Bible tells of who "spent their time in nothing 
else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing." Oh, 
those were awful times! 

On the last Friday in June the raiders really came, and 
they occupied the town for a day and a night and had their 
headquarters in the courthouse. We had a vague idea that 
the Rebels were a dreadful set of men, and we did n't know 
what horrid things they might do. So we mostly kept in 
our houses out of their way. They demanded a great sum of 
money of the townspeople. We could n't give it to them, 
and we were nearly scared to death. 

The following Tuesday evening we knew the Rebel army 
was near because we could see their campfires from our up- 
per windows off on the borders of the mountains to the 
west. Those campfires looked very ominous. 

The next morning, along about nine o'clock, I was iron- 
ing when I heard a shell fired out west of the town. The bat- 
tle had begun. All of us townspeople betook ourselves to 
the streets and stood around in groups or sat on doorsteps. 
We could hear the guns and cannon and we were nearly 
frightened out of our wits. Presently a bloodstained horse 
was led along our street, and then a soldier with a bandaged 
head went past, supported on either side by one of his 
comrades. It was sickening. 

Troops were constantly arriving hurrying to the battle- 
field, and we brought out some buckets of water and several 
tin cups. There were five of us girls in our family, and we 
handed the water to the soldiers as they double-quicked 
through the town. They drank without ever stopping and 



178 Gettysburg 

threw the cups back to us. Besides giving them water, we 
handed them cake, bread and butter, and anything at all we 
could find in the house that was good to eat. 

About four o'clock in the afternoon our artillery dashed 
through the streets retreating, and some officers as they 
rode along shouted: "Women and children, to the cellars! 
The Rebels will shell the town!" 

Our cellar was large and well-lighted, and it served as a 
refuge for some of the neighbors as well as ourselves. We 
spent two hours in it. There we were — a huddle of 
women and children — some crying, and some praying — 
praying more, maybe, than we ever did before. That was 
the awfullest time I ever experienced — listening to the 
screeching of the shells, and the helter-skelter retreat of our 
men, and the unearthly yelling of the pursuing Rebels. But 
the town was n't shelled, though a good many missiles acci- 
dentally came into it during the battle. 

The Union troops retreated through the town in a regu- 
lar stampede. Some of them came up an alley behind our 
house and in at the rear door and out at the front. After- 
ward we found in our back yard a number of guns loaded 
and capped that they'd thrown away. They could easily 
have pillaged the house, but the only thing we missed was 
a little linen apron I 'd been ironing. I think perhaps a sol- 
dier took it for a handkerchief. 

As we were looking out of one of the cellar windows we 
saw some of our men who'd been taken prisoners, and they 
were standing so near that we spoke to them. They said 
they expected to be sent off South and wished we would 
write to their home people. Then, one after the other, they 
gave us their names, and the addresses of the persons to 
whom we were to write. 




AVATER FOR THE MARCHING TROOPS 



The School Teacher 179 

The town was full of Rebels when we came up from the 
cellar, and we could see a Union soldier lying out in the 
street with his head cut off. He had probably been over- 
taken by the enemy's cavalry. 

Early next day one of the doctors came to our house and 
said to us girls: "You must come and help take care of the 
wounded. The men are suffering, and you are needed." 

It did n't seem as if I could do such work, but I went. 
The doctor led the way to the Catholic church, which, like 
all the other public buildings, had been turned into a hospi- 
tal. Some of the wounded lay in the pews, and some lay on 
the floor with knapsacks under their heads, and there were 
very few persons to do anything for the poor fellows. Every- 
where was blood, and on all sides we heard groans and cries 
and prayers. 

I knelt by the first wounded man inside of the door and 
asked, "What can I do for you?" 

He looked up with mournful, tearless eyes and answered: 
"Nothing. I am going to die." 

That was too much for me, and I went hastily out and sat 
down on the church steps and cried. But I soon controlled 
myself and returned to the wounded man. He told me his 
name was Stewart and that he had an aged father and 
mother and a wife. Then he asked me to read the fourteenth 
chapter of John, which his father had read the last time 
they had all gathered around the family altar. Later in the 
day he and eleven other wounded men were removed to our 
house. 

Meanwhile the battle was going on, but I was too busy to 
be afraid. The only time I realized the danger was on the 
afternoon of the third day. The heat was stifling and I sat 
on a low chair by Mr. Stewart in the back parlor fanning 



180 Gettysburg 

him. He had begged me to go to the cellar for safety, but 
I would not. Presently I changed my position, and I had 
scarcely done so when a bullet came in through a shutter 
and a window pane, and struck the floor just the other side 
of where I had been sitting. 

Everything was very quiet the night following the battle, 
except for the squawking of chickens. The Rebels were 
leaving, but so far as I know it was only chickens and other 
things to eat that they took from the houses in the region. 
They were all gone the next morning. 

The wounded remained in the town buildings till toward 
the end of the month. Those who could stand a railroad 
journey were then taken to the city hospitals, and the others 
out east of the town to a camp hospital which was contin- 
ued till autumn. Up to the time of this readjustment I min- 
istered to the wants of the "boys" quartered in our house, 
and went daily through the hospitals with my writing ma- 
terials to read and answer letters. All the other townspeople 
were busy in similar ways. They constantly visited the 
wounded soldiers, took them dainties, and did everjrthing 
they could for them. 

Quite a number of the wounded had friends come to see 
them, and we accommodated as many of these strangers as 
possible at our house. All our rooms were kept full, and I 
slept on the floor in the hall upstairs with a roll of carpet for 
my pillow. That was the only bed I had, and for weeks I 
did n't have my clothing off at night. Our ordinary house- 
hold routine was very much broken up. We came in and ate 
when we wanted anything, and it was a long time before we 
all sat down together. 

One of the soldiers in our house had lost a leg. My two 
youngest sisters often sang for him, and he would tell them 



The School Teacher 181 

stories of his experiences. I remember he said he was once 
in a battle where the troops were exposed to such a storm of 
bullets that the general ordered them to lie down. So down 
they lay, all except the general, who was very short and fat. 
Some of them shouted for him to lie down also, but he re- 
sponded: "Why should I lie down? I'm as tall then as 
when I 'm standing up." 

This wounded soldier seemed to be getting along very well 
until one night, in his restlessness, his bandages became loose, 
and by the time the fact was discovered and a surgeon had 
been summoned, he had lost so much blood that he only 
lived an hour or two. A few days later his wife came. She 
was young, and had left at home a babe the father had never 
seen. She learned of her husband's death after she arrived 
here, and her grief was heart-rending. 

Some of the wounded boys whom our home sheltered 
were presently well enough to rejoin their regiments, and one 
was killed in his next engagement. 

Mr. Stewart lingered till the Monday following the battle. 
The next summer his widow and his brother visited us, and 
the acquaintance with that brother led to my marrying him. 
He, too, had been a soldier, and he had come out of the army 
an invalid. We had been married only eleven months when 
he died. He had been educated for the ministry, and his 
brother was to have inherited their parents' farm; but the 
war took them both, and left the father and mother desolate 
in their old age. 

I had five uncles and eight first cousins in the Union 
armies — all from this town. When they enlisted they 
thought they would get back in two or three months. One of 
my cousins starved to death in Andersonville Prison. An- 
other was shot in the throat and never spoke a loud word 



182 Gettysburg 

afterward, but made himself understood chiefly by motions. 
A brother of his had both feet shot off and died in an ambu- 
lance that picked him up on the battlefield. Another brother 
was killed at Cold Harbor. Their father would n't let the 
youngest son go into the army, and the boy ran off and died 
in camp of measles. 

Practically all the young men in Gettysburg who were 
able went into the army, and I don't suppose any other town 
suffered as this town did. 



XXI 

The Colored Farm Hand ' 

At the time of the battle I was workin' for a farmer down in 
the coimtry about four mile from the town. But I heard 
the firin' — oh my, yes indeed! just like continuous thunder; 
and the whole country was full of black smoke. I could 
smell that smoke way down where I was. It certainly was 
a hard fight, and there was no eatin' or sleepin' hardly for 
the people around here durin' the three days it lasted. We 
did n't have no feelin' for shuttin' our eyes. 

A great many people had skedaddled, but the man I 
worked for stayed. We'd run off before when there 'd 
been false alarms, and had our trouble for nothin'. So 
the man I lived with said to me, " Isaac, we won't run no 
more." 

We were right there when the battle begun, and then we 
loaded up a wagon with provisions and grain, and got away 
with seven or eight of our horses down an old road into the 
woods. After we'd gone far enough to be well out of sight 
and hearing we unhitched the horses that drew the wagon, 

1 He showed a courtesy and an intelligence that were quite attrac- 
tive. Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of his personal appearance 
was the large-checked pattern of his trousers. The house in which he 
dwelt in the negro quarter of the town was fairly large and substantial, 
though not without touches of shabbiness. The door knob, for instance, 
was so loose and wobbly I wondered that it could be used at all. But I 
fancy that such flaws did not disturb the occupants of the house much, 
and that on the whole they were serenely content with the free and 
easy comfort of their way of living. 



184 Gettysburg 

and tied them and some of the others to wheels, and the 
rest we tied to the trees. 

There I stayed fearin' and tremblin', and looked after the 
horses. If the Rebels had happened to come through they'd 
have took 'em and me, too, but they did n't git there. Feed- 
ing and watering the horses did n't take long, and most of 
the time I just loafed around. At night I lay in the wagon. 
The man's son come back'ards and for'ards to bring me some- 
thing to eat and make sure eveiything was all right. Once he 
took my place, and I went toward Gettysburg to get a sight 
of the battle. But I had n't gone more 'n half way when I 
found wagon trains stickin' in the woods with guards to pro- 
tect 'em, and there were men movin' every which-a-way. It 
wa'n't safe to travel, and I turned back. 

The armies just about ruined the country here. Harvest 
tune had come, but we had n't cut our wheat, and a lot of 
troops marched through it and laid it flat as a board. They 
chopped down trees to make breastworks, and they dug deep 
trenches and made walls of earth to git behind and shoot. 
The soldiers was bound to take the nearest way to where 
they wanted to go, and they hacked the fence posts off and 
tilted the fences over so they could git into the fields quick. 
Most of the fences were burned in the campfires to make 
coffee and roast meat, but they burned some fences just for 
fun. They were wasteful in a good many ways. When a beef 
had been killed, a man would start in and skin back a little so 
he could git a piece of meat, and then he'd quit and put the 
meat on the point of a bayonet gun and hold it over the fire. 
If he had enough for himself that's all he cared about, and 
the other men got their meat just as he did. 

Lots of farmers who were well-to-do befo' the battle were 
poor afterward. Their hay and feed was gone, their growing 



The Colored Farm Hand 185 

crops ruined, their cattle stolen, and on some places all the 
boards had been ripped off the bams for firewood. A good 
many who had lost their horses went to the condemned 
sales of army horses and mules and stocked up with those 
old cripples, all lame, or collar sore, or used up in some way. 

I visited the battlefield three days after the fight, and it 
made me sick the bodies were so numerous and so swelled 
up, and some so shot to pieces — a foot here, an arm there, 
and a head in another place. They lay so thick in the Valley 
of Death that you could n't walk on the ground. Their flesh 
was black as your hat — yes, black as the blackest colored 
person. I been told that come from drinkin' whiskey with 
gunpowder in it to make 'em brave. A man would face 
anything then. 

There were thousands of the very prettiest kinds of mus- 
kets layin' around, and any amount of blankets, and lots of 
other stuff. Clearin' up was a hard job, and any one who 
wanted to work could make big money. A man would n't 
turn around less'n you gave him half a dollar. As quick as 
they could they throwed a little dirt over the horses, and 
they dug long, shallow trenches, and buried the men in 'em. 
The work was done in a hurry, and in some places you'd 
see feet or arms stickin' out. But within another week 
men and horses were all buried down decent. 

For years afterward farmers ploughing would once in a 
while find a skull, and they'd take those skulls home and 
have 'em settin' up on the mantelpiece for relics. But I 
did n't want no such relics as that. 

With all those dead men and horses buried close around 
the town, and the awful smell that was in the air for quite a 
time after the battle, it's a wonder we did n't die like flies. 
I guess we must have been saved from a pestilence by the 



186 Gettysburg 

buzzards. There were multitudes of 'em — and oh, my! 
they were the biggest ever seen. At night they'd go to the 
woods to roost and you could n't walk through under the 
trees they was so thick. It would n't have been pleasant, 
for they was throwin' up and everything else. 

Soon after the battle ended we had a rain. It just poured 
down; and all the streams were floatin', and the roads were 
nothin' but mud. The Rebel cavalry went through Em- 
metsburg with the Union cavalry pell-mell after 'em, and 
the horses' hoofs spattered the buildings up to the second 
story so you could n't tell what color they were. Deep ruts 
were cut in the roads by the heavy wagons and cannon, and 
for some time after the troops left we had to drive carefully 
in order not to have trouble. One day I was hauling a big 
load of hay to town. Probably there was much as three ton, 
and I had six horses to draw it. By and by the wheels on 
one side went into a cannon rut, and the wagon upset and 
turned over on top of the hay. The feller 's livin' yet that 
helped me right my wagon and get the hay back on again. 

The worst feature of the battle was the way the Rebels 
was allowed to escape. The water was so high in the Poto- 
mac that they lay on the north bank thirteen days waiting 
for it to go down so they could cross, and yet we let 'em git 
away. I think there was trickery. You see General Lee 
was a high Mason, and lots of our men was Masons, too, 
and they was bound to show him all the favors they could. 
If we'd been fighting with a foreign nation I don't believe 
the war would have lasted a year. 



XXII 

The Colored Servantmaid ^ 

My home was at a farmhouse a mile out of town on the 
Chambersburg Pike, where I worked for Mrs. Hartzell. 
She was a widow woman with two small children — a boy 
and a girl. I was about twenty years old then. 

The Rebels knew this country well, and some time before 
the battle they come ridin' all around here dressed in 
women's clothes spyin' out. We had a militia troop in 
the town but the Rebel raiders druv our militia clean out 
of sight. 

On the mornin' the fightin' begun there were pickets on 
horses all up and down the pike. We were standin' at the 
gate watchin' 'em, when suddenly they come tearin' along 
shoutin' that there was goin' to be a battle, and we were 
ordered to go to the next house. I was bakin' that day, but 
I left my bread in the oven, and we did n't take nothin' we 
were so scairt. Mrs. Hartzell ran along with the little girl, 
and I gathered up the little three-year-old boy and hurried 
after her. We got up to the high ground and stopped to 
look back — and oh! there was the beautifulest sight — 
the Union army all in line of battle. The blue coats and 

^ She was a fleshy woman who looked much younger than she really 
was. I spent an hour in the late dusk of an afternoon in her sitting- 
room. She had politely made me welcome and then disappeared. But 
she soon returned with her cap adjusted and her apron turned to pre- 
sent a clean side and sat down on the sofa after removing a sticky fly 
paper that was covered with flies. 



188 Gettysburg 

guns and flags stretched away a long distance as fur as we 
could see. 

The Rebels fired the first shell, and I pointed it out to the 
little boy way up in the air. After a while it busted. The 
Rebels fired twice befo' our people turned loose. Then we 
ran, and I fell. Mrs. Hartzell thought I was shot. But we 
got safely to the house of an old gentleman named Chriss. 
He and his family, and the rest of us went down in the cel- 
lar where we'd be mo' safer; and how that poor old soul did 
pray! My laws! you never heard such prayin' in your life, 
and I think the Lord heard his prayers and took care of us. 
The children and nearly every one was cryin'. Once a ball 
come in through a window and rolled down in the middle 
of the floor. I was thankful it did n't hit us. I wanted to 
see my mother then, but I was satisfied to stay there till 
they were done fighting. 

Once I looked out. The Rebels were charging, and when 
the Union troops fired their volleys I see men among the 
Rebels stumble and pitch forward and fall as if they were 
tripping over briars. 

We were inside the Rebel lines, and the soldiers were all 
the time running in and out of the house. You 'd hear 'em 
load their guns — clicky-click, and push 'em out the win- 
dows and fire. We did n't know what they was goin' to do 
with us. 'Long about five o'clock the noise stopped for a 
while, and the old gentleman said, " I b'lieve I '11 go up and 
see what's goin' on." 

In a minute he run back and says, "Women and chil- 
dren, fo' the Lord's sake come up!" 

We went up and looked out of the kitchen door, and 
down a little way toward the town there was a bayonet 
charge in a wheatfield. They were just cuttin' and jaggin'; 



The Colored Servantmaid 189 

and of all the hollerin' and screamin' and rattlin' of swords 
and bayonets I never heard the like. It was the awfullest 
thing to see! They had ambulances there, and as fast as 
the men fell they were picked up and carried off. Pretty 
soon they commenced firin' again, and we all fell right back 
down in the cellar. Then some one come and told us we 
must get out of there and go across the fields to another 
house. That house was Dave Hankey's. His place was 
thronged with Rebels, and they stopped me, and said to 
Mrs. Hartzell: "Hey, what you doin' with her? She's got 
to go along with us." 

"You don't know what you're talkin' about," Mrs. 
Hartzell said, and I was so scairt I hung onto her skirts. 

We got down into the cellar, and I crawled way back in 
the darkest comer and piled everything in front of me. I 
was the only colored person there, and I did n't know what 
might happen to me. Up in the kitchen was a sick officer, 
and he wanted the women to come up out of the cellar to 
take care of him and do some cooking, and he promised 
they should be well treated. Mr, Hankey says to him, 
"Would you see a colored person protected if she was to 
help with the work here? " 

He said he would, and he sent out a written somethin' or 
'nother orderin' the men to keep out of the kitchen, and he 
had the door boarded up half way so they could hand in 
things to be cooked and we could hand 'em out afterward. 
No one could go out and no one could come in. The officer 
must have been pretty sick. 'Deed, I don't know what was 
the matter of him, but he just lay on the broad of his back. 
I had to comb his head, wash his face, and take off his shoes 
and stockings. We stayed up all night doin' nothin' but 
cook and bake for the Rebels. Good land ! they killed cows 



190 Gettysburg 

and calves and chickens and everything they come across, 
and brought the things to us to cook. I heard Mr. Hankey 
pleading with 'em not to kill his calf, but it did n't do no 
good. 

By morning we were pretty near dead. There was no 
chance to sleep, and I could n't have slept anyway for 
hearin' them miserable wounded men hollerin' and goin* 
on out in the yard and in the barn and other buildings. 
They moaned and cried and went on terribly. "Oh! take 
me home to my parents," they'd say. 

The battle was at a distance the second day, and late on 
the third day the Confederates left. They'd just heard of 
some great army comin', and they run. I never seen such a 
sight of goin' people with their wagons, cannons, ambu- 
lances, and horses. Nobody has an idea of the excitement 
and noise. But in a little while the place was rid out. We 
were free souls then. Our army did n't pursue 'em. The 
people that was in the battle needed a rest, and the people 
that was n't in it was satisfied to take a rest, too. 

When we got back to Mrs. Hartzell's we found everything 
either thrown out of the house, or all broken up, and the 
garden all tramped and mashed down. She had relatives 
who give her some things so we got fixed up after a while. 

Near us was a brick tavern, and in this here tavern a com- 
pany of soldiers put up after the battle. We used water 
from the tavern well, but it got so ugly and smelt so bad we 
could hardly drink it. The soldiers was sick, and we was 
sick. They thought there was dead frogs down in the well, 
and so one day they pumped and pumped to clear it out, 
and by and by here comes up a little piece of a wrist and 
thumb. They'd been cookin* with that water, and so had 
we; and now that they knew what was the matter there was 



The Colored Servantmald 191 

a lot of gaggin' done among 'em, but what was down they 
could n't git up. We did n't use that well no mo', and to 
this day I could n't drink a drop out of it just for the 
thoughts of what was found in it so long ago. 

I knew of another well that was half filled with dead sol- 
diers. That was an easy way to bury 'em. Those was rough 
times — rough times — and I'm sure of one thing — if 
they ever fight again in this country I don't want to be 
around. 



XXIII 

The Bank Clerk ^ 

I WAS a clerk in the Savings Institution. There was one 
other bank in town. Whenever the bank officials got fear- 
ful that the place would be raided one or two of us would go 
away with the funds. We had scares all along from the fall 
of 1862 until late in 1864, and we carried off the funds eight- 
een or twenty times. On several occasions I went alone, 
and there was once I took as much as one hundred and 
twenty-five thousand dollars. I 'd drive with a horse and 
buggy by the old pike twenty-eight miles to York and then 
ship the funds by railroad to Philadelphia. 

We were particularly uneasy before the Battle of Gettys- 
burg, for we'd heard that Stonewall Jackson had threat- 
ened to lay waste the country when he got into Pennsyl- 
vania and not leave one brick on top of another. But none 
of the whites were scared quite as badly as were the darkies. 
I remember a nigger named Jack who worked on a fai-m 
near the town. At a time when a troop of raiders was 
known to be swooping in our direction he said, "They'll 
kill all us niggers, or take us back to slavery." 

He was a bow-legged nigger who could n't make much 
speed, and he did n't have any confidence in his ability to 

1 In his maturer years he had risen to the position of bank president, 
and his residence was the finest in town. There I spent an evening with 
him in one of the handsome rooms. Roundabout were beautiful and 
costly mementoes of foreign travel, and in cases ranged along the walls 
was a wonderful collection of colonial china. 



The Bank Clerk 193 

outrun the raiders. So he crep' under a haystack and stayed 
without a morsel to eat for three or four days. He almost 
starved. 

A great many refugee darkies passed through Gettys- 
burg going northward. Some would have a spring wagon 
and a horse, but usually they were on foot, bui'dened with 
bundles containing a couple of quilts, some clothing, and a 
few cooking utensils. In several instances, I saw 'em trun- 
dling along their little belongings in a two-wheeled hand- 
cart. Occasionally there 'd be one who was driving a single 
sheep, or hog, or a cow and a calf. They were a God-for- 
saken looking people. The farmers along the roads shel- 
tered them nights. Most of these here poor runaways would 
drift into the towns and find employment, and there they'd 
make their future homes. 

Just before the raid that occurred in the last week of 
June, 1863, 1 went off with the bank funds, and when I re- 
turned I found the Rebels in possession of the town. They 
took me to the bank and made me show 'em that we had n't 
any money there, and one of 'em threatened to send me and 
the treasurer to Richmond. They had demanded that Get- 
tysburg should give 'em twenty-five thousand dollars in 
money, ten thousand barrels of flour, and a lot of mess pork 
and other things, but they did n't get the money or much 
else in the town. The stores would have yielded them a lot 
of plunder if the proprietors had n't guarded against that 
possibihty by carrying just as small a stock as they could. 
However, the raiders went out into the country around and 
stole every farm animal that walked, and secured a great 
deal of corn, oats, hay, meat, etc. Their teams were going 
all the time taking the stuff south into the Confederate lines. 

A few days after this raid some four thousand of our 



194 Gettysburg 

cavalry came here, and, although we knew Lee was near 
by, we felt then as if everything was safe. Oh, my goodness, 
yes! our belongings were under Uncle Sam's protection, 
and they were all right. 

The following morning the battle began on the edge of 
the town, and all the time more of our troops were arriving. 
They went through the streets in the double-quick step, 
which is next thing to a run. Some of 'em had marched 
thirty-two miles. It was very hot weather, and they'd 
thrown away much of their clothing. Often they had very 
little on but their pants, and went right into the engage- 
ment, hatless, shirtless, and shoeless. Some of 'em had 
welts around their bodies, where they wore their belts, 
three inches wide of blood and gore. Their supplies never 
got here till that night or the next morning, and they made 
breastworks by digging with their knives and spoons and 
plates. 

A good many of us citizens went out to the battlefield 
with food. Some of us carried baskets of pies and cake, but 
mostly we took bread in flour bags and broke it up and gave 
it to the soldiers. The heat and the smoke there on the 
battle line were suffocating, and at times the smoke was so 
thick it obscured the sun and hid the enemy from sight. 

About four in the afternoon we food-carriers were or- 
dered back to the town, and soon afterward our men re- 
treated and the place fell into the hands of the Rebels. 
Many Union soldiers took refuge in the houses. They were 
hidden all over town. We had two in our cellar until after 
the battle was over. They came in completely worn out, 
and left their guns and knapsacks by the dining-room fire- 
place. Mother had just time to throw the knapsacks out of 
sight back of the fireboard, and to lay the guns down and 



The Bank Clerk 195 

push them under the lounge with her foot when there was a 
rap at the door. She opened it, and on the steps stood some 
Rebels who asked, "Are there any Yankees here?" 

"Do you see any?" she said. 

That did n't satisfy 'em, and they searched the house, 
upstairs and down, but they did n't happen to go to the 
cellar. We gave the fugitives some blankets to sleep on. 
One of 'em had been wounded in the face by a piece of shell. 
He ought to have gone right to the hospital, but he had 
such a horror of falling into the clutches of the Rebels 
that he would n't leave the house. Mother put hot water 
and camphor on the wound to relieve the inflammation, and 
when her supply of camphor ran out she grated potato and 
used it with cold water from the well. But the treatment 
was n't effective, and when the fellow did get to the hospi- 
tal it was too late, and he died. 

All our schoolhouses, churches, and other public build- 
ings had been converted into hospitals, and I was one of 
the helpers in them during the second and third days of the 
battle, and for some weeks afterward. Sunday morning, 
the fifth of July, the hospital stewards went with wagons 
and doctors to search for any wounded who might have 
been overlooked. There had been a good rain Friday night 
that was very refreshing to the wounded on the field, and 
it no doubt saved many of their lives. 

You can't conceive what a sight the battleground pre- 
sented with all its devastation and wreckage, and its strew- 
ing of dead horses and dead men. Where there had been 
severe fighting in woodland the trees were all splintered 
and broken, and some that had been a foot or more through 
were shot away till they looked like pipe-stems. 

On my uncle's farm, just below Big Round Top, eighteen 



196 Gettysburg 

hundred of the dead were buried in a single trench. They 
were covered very shallow, and at night you could see 
phosphorescent light coming out of the earth where they 
were buried. You might think the buzzards would have 
swarmed to the battlefield, and we used to have a popular 
guide here who declared that they gathered from the four 
corners of the earth to prey on the dead. He described 
how, when they rose from their horrid feast, they dark- 
ened the sky. Some one asked him why he told such a 
yarn as that. 

"Oh, well!" he says, "it amuses the people. They want 
things made exciting." 

Really there were no buzzards here, probably because 
they were frightened away by the smell of the powder and 
the noise of the cannonading. They never made their ap- 
pearance till several months later. 

Such of the wounded as were able to crawl dragged them- 
selves to the streams and to the shade of bushes, and they 
often got to spots so secluded that they were not easily dis- 
covered. Moving them sometimes opened their wounds 
afresh, and they bled to death. We found two on Tuesday 
afternoon. One of them, with a compound fracture of his 
leg, lay in a swamp where he had sucked water from the 
mud. 

A year passed away, and Lincoln came and made his 
great speech in dedicating the national cemetery here. I 
was within thirty feet of him when he spoke, and I remem- 
ber distinctly how he looked — a tall, awkward figure with 
one of his trouser's legs hitched up on his boot. But his 
words made a tremendous impression, and that immortal 
speech goes far to compensate for the horrors of the battle. 



XXIV 

The Merchant's Son^ 

Father had a store here in Vicksburg, but the war mined 
him. He was getting to be an old man when the war began, 
and after two years of it he had to quit. That was true of 
dozens of other merchants. They could n't get goods, and 
a great many of their customers had left town to go to 
places twenty, thirty, and forty miles distant where they 
thought they would be safer. 

There was an increasing stringency in merchandise from 
the time that intercourse with the North ceased. Very 
soon our coast was blockaded, and then our lack of manu- 
factories became a serious matter. The supplies brought in 
by blockade runners were scanty in amount and high in 
price. Clothing of all descriptions, dress-goods, millinery, 
and shoes were very scarce. So were tinware and crockery 
and other household utensils. Not much flour was to be 
had, and no raisins or dates, and seldom any oranges, lem- 
ons, or bananas. We were cut off from all kinds of oil and 
light. Kerosene had come into common use here, and when 
that was no longer to be had we got out our candle molds 
and made candles. Some made dipped candles. 

No one who was n't here can realize the privations we 

1 He was a white-haired, serious man of affairs, of New England 
ancestry, but ardently Southern in his point of view. We sat and 
chatted one morning in his upstairs office on the main business street 
of the city. 



198 The Siege of Vicksburg 

went through. We made coffee out of crusts of bread that 
we toasted brown and ground up, and we made it out of 
burnt sugar. Rye coffee was quite a drink, and there was 
sweet potato coffee, which was better than nothing at all. 
I 've drank many a cup of it and was glad to get it; and I Ve 
put many a dab of butter in my coffee instead of milk, be- 
cause milk was so scarce. Lots of people who ordinarily 
would have used considerable flour ate com bread for 
months and months and months. Pies and cakes and things 
of that kind were a luxury. At our house we made pound 
cake by mixing a little flour with cornmeal, adding butter, 
eggs, and sugar, and cooking it in a round tin dish. 

Most of our young men joined the army. One crack 
company of them left here one hundred and fifty strong. 
When that company returned it numbered only twenty- 
eight. 

For a long time we had large numbers of Confederate 
troops in or about the city. They were not a desirable ele- 
ment in the community. Soldiers never are, even in times 
of peace. Environment is more important than heredity 
in determining a man's character. You cut a man off from 
his family and home surroundings, and he is not in his 
proper element. With the natural restraints gone man re- 
turns to his brute instincts. An army is a big drain on the 
region where it is quartered or through which it moves, 
whether it consists of friends or enemies. And the meeting 
of troops in battle is hell for them, and it is hell for the 
people living there. 

When Vicksburg became a center of military activity 
troops occupied the courthouse and were in tents and hast- 
ily-built barracks all around town. Marauders always 
abound among soldiers, and though the officers tried to con- 



The Merchant's Son 199 

trol their men and prevent lawlessness, that was impossible. 
Our orchards were raided and our chickens taken. The sol- 
diers were up to every deviltry you can think of. They 
would come into a store, get hold of the end of a ball of 
twine, then go outside and pull the twine till they had all 
there was in the ball. Another favorite joke was to unscrew 
a nut from the wheel of a buggy that was standing on the 
street. They put the nut into the buggy, and when the un- 
suspecting owner got in and drove away the wheel would 
come off. 

Grant arrived in this vicinity in January, 1863, to at- 
tempt the task of capturing the city. The Mississippi made 
a great bend opposite Vicksburg, and he tried to dig a canal 
across the peninsula, which was only a mile wide, so that 
vessels could go up and down the river without coming in 
range of the city guns. But after six weeks of the hardest 
kind of work a flood drowned many of his horses and forced 
the men to fly for their lives. He made other unsuccessful 
experiments, and there was a general demand in the North 
for his dismissal. At length he sent his army below Vicks- 
burg by a route west of the river, and on the night of April 
16th three supply boats, protected by Admiral Porter's 
ironclads, set out to run past the eight miles of batteries 
here. All the vessels were damaged, but with the exception 
of one transport that was burned they got away down the 
river. A week later another supply fleet ran past the bat- 
teries. 

The army met the boats twenty-five miles south of here, 
crossed the river, and after a succession of fierce battles ar- 
rived on the heights around the city on May 18th. They 
assaulted the works the next day, and again three days 
later, but gained no advantage of consequence and lost 



200 The Siege of Vicksburg 

many lives. Then they settled down to starve us out, and 
Porter's fleet bombarded the place incessantly. 

Many of the streets were cut through hills, and there 
were clay banks on either side of them. These clay banks 
offered an opportunity for making caves to shelter us from 
the missiles that the enemy was hurling into the place. So 
there was much burrowing in the earth, and many of us 
spent a large portion of our time in the underground domi- 
ciles which we made. 

My home was on a hill in the better residence section, 
and we dug a cave just outside of the yard in the bank by 
the public road. We made the roof out of railroad iron and 
crossties. The iron rails supported the crossties, which 
were laid close together, and the crossties were covered 
with dirt. The cave was as large as a fair-sized room and 
high enough so a person could stand up. There was a board 
floor and we had mattresses and pillows in there, and sev- 
eral chairs, including one rocking-chair. We kept eandles 
in the cave to furnish light. Its gi'eatest lack was perhaps 
in the matter of ventilation, and the atmosphere was 
stifling to some extent. Often we slept in the cave, but we 
rarely stayed in it during the daytime unless there was a 
hot bombardment. 

We were n't afraid of the big shells. They went over the 
town, and we 'd see them at night like shooting stars. As 
a matter of fact the bombarding was all of it more spectac- 
ular than dangerous. The Yankees could have shelled 
Vicksburg till hell froze over, or the termination of all time, 
and not have captured the place. But think of all we had 
to contend with — our lack of food and the shabby equip- 
ment of our troops. I never have understood why so much 
credit was given to General Grant for capturing the city. 



The Merchant's Son 201 

We were on the verge of starvation. There were no deli- 
cacies even for the wounded, and the surgeons did n't have 
chloroform half the time. Many of the garrison and the 
citizens perished from sickness and exhaustion. 

So on July 3d, about the middle of the morning, white 
flags were unfurled on the parapet of our fortifications, and 
the cannon ceased to roar. Grant and the Confederate 
commander, Pemberton, met that afternoon and arranged 
the terms of surrender, and the next day the Union troops 
took possession of the city. 

I recall that the Confederate prisoners were driven bare- 
foot through the streets. That looked rather rough to us, 
but I believe the North thought the Union prisoners who 
fell into Southern hands during the war were hardly treated, 
too. Probably it was about six of one and half a dozen 
of the other. 

What hurt us worst in connection with the war was the 
aftermath — the days of reconstruction. Many of the sol- 
diers came home to a standing chimney. There was no 
house, no fences, no slaves, no anything to do with; but 
there was a wife and children to be supported. Perhaps 
the man had never worked in his life — did n't know how 
— that was the tragedy. 



XXV 

The Soldier's Wife ^ 

This old house here on the heights of Fort Hill overlooking 
Vicksburg and the river and all the surrounding country 
v/as where my father and husband lived at the time they 
went away to join the Southern army. The hill was forti- 
fied by the Confederates, and you might think that fact 
accounts for its name, but really the name is inherited from 
an old Spanish fort that was here long, long before on the 
topmost height — a ridge known as the Devil's Backbone. 
After the war had dragged on for about two years the 
Yankees began to close in around the town. They had a 
fleet of war vessels up beyond the turn of the Mississippi, 
and one day a curious thing happened. A Northern gun- 
boat came down the river with a white flag a-flying. I 
watched her. Presently she approached the shore, and 
down went the flag. The commander stood with one foot 
raised ready to spring off, and right behind him were his 
men all armed and prepared to follow him. Evidently the 
plan was to come so close with the boat that the water- 
batteries could n't depress their guns enough to hit her. A 
few moments more and the troops would have landed, but 
just then a ball was sent through the boat's hull, and she 

^ She said she was seventy, yet was so youthful in appearance and 
so sprightly in manner that I would more readily have assented to 
thinking her fifty. I called on her in a pleasant farmhouse on the sub- 
urbs of the city. We sat and talked in the parlor one warm afternoon 
while a grateful breeze blew in at the open windows. 



The Soldier's Wife 203 

backed out and started up the river. They hoisted their 
white flag again, but our batteries kept firing till she went 
in among the willows across the river and sank. It was an 
unfair deception to use a white flag that way. 

Our people were always on the lookout for attempts to 
run boats down past the batteries, and of course we wanted 
to thwart any such undertaking and destroy the boats. 
We had what was called the "Mosquito Fleet" which con- 
sisted of several skiffs rowed by men belonging to the river 
batteries. As soon as the enemy's boats were detected 
coming the Mosquito Fleet was to row to the opposite shore 
and set fire to some houses there. That would light up the 
whole river like day, and then our guns could be aimed at 
the Yankee vessels. I recall the first alarm. We were in 
bed and asleep way in the night, and the signal cannon 
boomed. It had hardly fired when the Mosquito Fleet men 
had the houses across the river blazing. We jumped up and 
ran out on the gallery. First the Yankees sent down some 
scows filled with hay and that sort of thing. They waited 
to see how those dummies would fare, and afterward, on 
two different nights, started out with gunboats and trans- 
ports. We looked on while some of the vessels burned or 
sank and the cannon balls flew back and forth. 

When the enemy began to bombard the town we fixed up 
a shelter over in a gully hardly a stone's throw from the 
house. Mother did n't want to have a cave. She was afraid 
the roof would come down on her, and she said she'd rather 
be killed and buried than be buried alive. So we shoveled 
away enough dirt to make a level place like a shelf on the 
side of one of the steep slopes there in the hollow. Then we 
laid a floor and leaned some good long plank against the 
hill and drove stubs into the ground at the lower ends of the 



204 The Siege of Vicksburg 

plank to hold 'em in place. We put mattresses inside, and 
we generally slept in the shelter at night and were often 
there in the daytime. 

One morning I was going along a cattle path on my way 
to the hollow when the Yankees commenced shooting. I 
stopped and said, "Never mind, I'm going to stay here 
and see what you are doing." 

About a minute later a shell dropped so close that the 
dirt it threw up buried me nearly to my knees. 

We had so many hairbreadth escapes! Our house was in 
an exposed position, and by the end of the siege the north 
side was like a pepper box with holes made by the Minie 
balls that had passed through it. When those balls were 
flying thick it just sounded like the biggest hail I ever 
heard. But I was n't frightened. I never thought a bullet 
was made for me. 

I remember the soldiers told us, "Ladies, this is no place 
for you," but we would n't desert our home. 

Late one day as I was in the front part of the house get- 
ting ready to go over to our night rendezvous, a shell came 
down in our kitchen. I thought from the sound that it had 
smashed the stove all to pieces. So out I rushed to the 
kitchen to investigate, and I fell through a gaping hole in 
the floor. I did n't get out of there till they chopped me 
out with an axe. I bear the scars yet. 

Another time two of us girls were at the table eating. 
The Yankees were firing, and Mother had sent the younger 
children over to the hollow. Suddenly she said, " Get right 
up and come out because I know something is going to 
happen." 

She was so earnest about it that we thought we would 
humor her, and we stepped out to the gallery. Almost 



The Soldier's Wife 205 

instantly a shell passed right through the room. It would 
have taken our heads off where we had been sitting. It's 
very strange — those warnings to get out of danger. I 
s'pose we have to thank the good angel that is always 
with us. 

I used to have a little fun with two of the guns that were 
firing from the other side of the point. They were what 
were called Columbiads. I don't think they ever did any 
damage. They had a certain range and I soon learned just 
where the balls from each would fall. I 'd get on my horse 
to ride, and the Yankee gunners would see me and imagine 
I was a courier. Bang! would go the first gun and the ball 
would fall in a near gully. At once I would gallop on till 
I approached the range of the second gun. Then I 'd stop 
till the gun fired, and afterward I 'd canter along about my 
business. 

Blackberries were plentiful all aroimd us, and one after- 
noon I went out back of the house to pick some. I wanted 
them to take to the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospi- 
tals. As I was stooping down reaching for some a Minie 
ball passed in front of my face and took off a piece of the 
bush I was picking from. Oh! I 've felt the wind of many a 
Minie ball. I had about a quart of berries, but that was n't 
enough, and I did n't go to the house till I had filled my 
pail and eaten all I wanted besides. 

One day I went to call on a woman who lived over on the 
Jackson Road, a mile and a half away. I walked, and 
Mother told me just how long I could stay. We never 
thought of disobeying our mother. It so happened that I 
had a curiosity to go to some other place, and in order not 
to overrun my allotted time I cut short my call. Hardly 
five minutes after I left the woman a shell came into 



206 The Siege of VIcksburg 

her house and struck her and scattered her brains about. 
People who were there said I had n't got out of sight. 
Mother heard that shell explode and knew pretty near 
where it fell, and she never had a moment's peace till I 
came home. I got there on time. 

My husband was in a detachment at the extreme right 
of the Confederate lines. I used to ride over there on my 
horse three times a week. He was sort of a dudish fellow, 
and I liked to see him look nice. So I always carried him 
some clean clothes, and I'd cook up biscuit and meat to 
take. I had an old-fashioned carpetbag that would hold a 
bushel, and I put the things into that and hung it to the 
pommel of my side-saddle. There were five men in my hus- 
band's mess. He divided the food I brought with his com- 
rades, and they watched for my approach as much as he 
did. "Your wife's coming," I'd hear them holler to him. 

Firing from both sides was common, and their situation 
was not very safe, though it was protected by entrench- 
ments. Sometimes the lieutenant would tell me to go way 
back behind a large tree. Then I 'd go and sit down in the 
rear of their tent for a few minutes, but as soon as the lieu- 
tenant's attention was engaged I'd return. 

We saw hard times during the war. We did n't have 
very much to begin with, and a good deal of that was 
stolen. But let me tell you — I've seen the armies of both 
sides, and there's a class that follows the troops and steals 
things even if they don't want 'em, and the blame is put on 
the soldiers. Of course, though, the soldiers took a good 
deal, too. 

Once we filled some candle molds full of tallow that had 
a little beeswax in it to make it harder, and we set 'em out 
to cool. We left 'em there till after dark. Then I went to 



The Soldier's Wife 207 

get one of the candles to light, and the molds and all were 
gone. I suppose some of our soldiers had candles up at 
camp that night. 

Sometimes they would be shooting and hit a cow or a 
calf, and then they 'd have fresh meat. They were quite apt 
to accidently kill a beef creature when they got very hun- 
gry. We managed to keep our cow. But chickens! oh my 
heavens! they disappeared long before the surrender. The 
last survivor was a pet hen. My Httle girl, only two years 
old, just loved that chicken. One day a soldier came along 
and saw the hen, and he stopped and wanted to buy it for 
a sick comrade who could n't eat anything but chicken 
soup. I called the little girl and said: "Gerty, a poor sick 
man wants your chicken. He's mighty hungry, and this 
friend of his will pay you two dollars for it. That's enough 
money to buy you a pretty dress." 

She consented to part with the hen, but she did n't want 
to see the man ketch it, and she run out of sight. 

Once we 'd just finished churning and had taken the but- 
ter out and put it away when the shells came so thick that 
we went over to the hollow. We left the churn with the 
buttermilk in it on the table in the dining-room. While we 
were gone it was taken. No doubt the buttermilk was 
what was wanted, and we'd have been glad to spare that 
if we could have retained the churn. 

That made us more careful than ever. We had a barrel 
and a half of flour, and I said, " It would be a good plan to 
put our flour in two different places." 

So we set the half barrel in the back hall where it would 
be most convenient, and we put the full barrel in one of the 
bedrooms and threw some soiled clothes over it. The next 
morning we came over from the hollow to cook breakfast, 



208 The Siege of Vicksburg 

and there was only enough flour left of the half barrel for 
one meal. We tracked the thieves to camp, and then I 
said: "Oh Ma! it's the soldiers. Let 's go back." 

By the end of the siege not a fence was left in the sub- 
urbs. They'd been taken for kindlings. The soldiers be- 
gan destroying them, and then the people saw that the 
fences were doomed and concluded they might as well use 
them for firewood themselves. We could n't get wood 
hauled in from the farm districts. When the war began the 
town was surrounded with great forest trees — wa'nut 
trees, oaks, and sycamores. But the soldiers cut them 
down because they were in the way, or because they needed 
them for firewood or breastworks. The camps were every- 
where, and the stumps were to some degree a convenience. 
A soldier could build a fire against one and it served for 
a backlog as long as it lasted. 

We had a garden plot, but we could n't raise anything in 
it. Somebody was sure to pull every sprig that came up. 
However, there was a kind of wild onion that grew over 
back of the garden near the stable where the soldiers did n't 
get hold of it. We secured enough of those wild onions to 
flavor hash and things like that. 

At last our flour got reduced to three pounds and our 
cornmeal to a single half bushel. Until nearly that time we 
had rice, and we could always buy brown sugar and mo- 
lasses and cowpeas. We ground up the cowpeas and made 
mush and baked bread out of it. But the bread did n't taste 
done. It tasted like it was raw. For variety we boiled up 
the cowpeas with water till they fell to pieces. We had no 
meat or salt to put in, but we called it soup. I don't eat 
many beans now like I used to in my young days because 
they remind me of the war and cowpeas. 



The Soldier's Wife 209 

Toward the end of the siege the soldiers, sick and well, 
did n't have much else. Just think of a man lying there 
with chronic dysentery and fed with cowpeas! No wonder 
the soldiers died. I heard of an instance where three of 
them who were brothers starved to death in a tent out in a 
field here. 

One evening a soldier came along the road to our house, 
and spoke to me. "Madam," he said, "could you give me 
a piece of bread?" 

He was actually staggering for want of food. I got a 
plate of bread, and the children came out with me to see 
him. There were five of them. "Do all these children be- 
long here?" he asked. 

"Yes," I replied. 

" I have a houseful of children myself at home," he said, 
"and I 'd want to murder any man who'd go there and eat 
their bread. Save every crumb you have. You don't know 
how long this siege will last." 

He turned and walked off as fast as he could go, appar- 
ently in haste to get away from the food which he might be 
tempted to accept. Two of the little girls ran after him, 
each with a slice of the bread, and urged him to take it. 
But he refused to do so in spite of his sore need. I consider 
him one of the bravest men among the defenders of Vicks- 
burg. 

His was not an isolated case either. When the Federals 
got into the city they broke open the warehouses and were 
dumbfounded to find in them great quantities of provisions. 
Our starving troops had never touched them because they 
were private property. 

After a siege of about seven weeks poor Vicksburg was 
humiliated into a surrender, and we sat in sackcloth and 



210 The Siege of Vicksburg 

ashes. The surrender occurred on the Fourth of July, a 
day that belonged to North and South alike. It could just 
as well have taken place on the third, but Grant wanted the 
big thing of capturing the stronghold on the Fourth, even 
though men were suffering here for lack of food. Many a 
good fellow starved to death because of that delay. It was 
a mean thing in Grant to demand such an arrangement and 
a mean thing in Pemberton to agree to it. I 've never for- 
given them. They both got their reward. Grant himself 
starved to death — not because he did n't have food but 
because he could n't eat; and Pemberton died in obscurity 
and no one had any respect for him. 

The Federal troops marched into town right past our 
place. Among the rest were some colored troops, and every 
last one of those negro men had on a big blue army over- 
coat. It was a hot midsummer day and they were sweating 
to beat the band, but no doubt they were happy in their 
gay military attire and proud of their release from slavery. 
They were Uncle Sam's children now, and every man was 
going to get forty acres and a mule — at least that was what 
they were told as an inducement to enlist. 

One of the niggers was carrying an American flag. He 
had it over his shoulder and it was trailing along in the dirt. 
The road was very dusty. I don't believe it had rained but 
once during the entire siege. That sight took away all the 
respect I had for the flag and I said, " They've turned their 
flag over to the niggers — let the niggers have it." 

Ever since the Union forces closed in about the city 
there had been one of their flags over on their breastworks 
that we could see from our house. I used to point to it and 
say to our soldiers: "If you capture that flag treat it with 
respect. Roll it up and bring it to me. I '11 take care of it." 



The Soldier's Wife 211 

But after what I saw of the way its defenders allowed it 
be mistreated when they were marching into Vicksburg 
I can't think of it with affection any more. I 've made up 
my mind, too, that it is not nearly so beautiful as our 
original Confederate flag — the one that had three broad 
stripes and a blue field of stars. Really, the American flag 
looks like an old bedquilt. 

The Confederates had a cannon on this hill that they 
called "Whistling Dick," because its discharge was always 
accompanied by a pecuhar whistle. No matter how many 
other guns were firing you could distinguish that sound; 
and, besides, the gun had individuality in its appearance, 
for it was very, very long. We could depend on its accu- 
racy, and it was a pet with the soldiery, and the citizens 
thought a whole pile of it, too. The troops hated to have 
Whistling Dick fall into the hands of the Federals, and on 
the night of July 3d they disposed of it. The story is that 
it was taken out in the Mississippi and sunk. 

Another thing the soldiers did was to roll some of thecas- 
sions down into the gullies along here. There was a good 
deal of powder on the cassions, put up in red flannel sacks, 
and the boys got hold of it. They 'd learned from the sol- 
diers how to lay a string of powder and touch it off so as to 
make a kind of fireworks. The boys stored the powder 
around here and there where they would have it handy. 
One day, by some mischance, a lot of it went off. It tore a 
great hole in the ground and blackened a near house and 
injured some of the boys. 

My little brother Lem, six years old, was one of the boys 
who was there. Mother had started out to find him and 
call him to dinner when she heard the explosion. Some 
colored people got to the spot first. Lem and a colored boy 



212 The Siege of Vicksburg 

of about the same age had been bio wed up. The powder 
was damp or it would have killed them. One of those who 
hurried to the spot, alarmed by the explosion and the 
screams, was the mother of the colored boy. His clothes 
were on fire, and she stripped him. Next she stripped Lem, 
for his clothes were smoldering, too. Then one of the col- 
ored people brought some molasses and put it on the boys' 
burns, and another put on some flour. 

They had started to carry Lem home when Mother and I 
met them, and I could n't help but laugh to save my life, 
Lem was such a sight. His face was scorched and his eye- 
brows burnt off. Usually he wore a palmetto hat that we 'd 
woven ourselves, but some soldier had given him an army 
cap, and all his hair was singed off right up to the edge of 
that cap. His fingernails were bio wed off, and we thought 
he'd lost his sight. "Are your eyes burnt out?" Mother 
asked. 

" No," he said, " I can see," and he opened his eyes, " but 
you better go and find my shoes. I left 'em down there 
where the powder blew up." 

Lem's fingers had to be tied up separately, and he 
could n't feed himself for six weeks. We had to pick the 
powder out of his face or he'd have been marked for life. 
The colored boy was permanently disfigured because he 
took a knife and scraped his scabs off. 

Unexploded shells were numerous all around here, and a 
free darky named David Foot gathered 'em up out on the 
line, took the powder out, and sold 'em for old iron. But 
one day, as he was digging up a shell, he struck it in such a 
way that it exploded and blew his legs off. He died shortly 
afterward. 

I had one serious war-time adventure a year after the 



The Soldier's Wife 213 

surrender. I was out with my horse riding on the battle- 
field. It was all grown up with tall weeds, and I was push- 
ing along through 'em when I heard a negro's voice call, 
"Halt!" 

I did n't want to be stopped by a negro, even if he was a 
government guard, and I pulled my horse aside down into 
a trench out of sight. I knew some of those ditches ran 
a mile. That was farther than I cared to ride through a 
jungle of weeds. So after I had gone a short distance I 
urged the horse till he jumped with me up on the bank. 
Again I heard the negro shout, "Halt!" 

I rode up to him and said : " Uncle, I 'm lost. My patience 
alive! how these weeds do hide everything! Won't you 
please show me the way to the road? " 

"Lady," he said, "if it had n't been for the wind blowing 
your veil just as you came up out of the gully so I knew 
you was a woman I should have shot you." 

I suppose it was his duty to take me to headquarters, 
but I persuaded him to show me the road, and then I gal- 
loped back home as fast as I could. 

Father had left the army and returned to us. He owned 
a wagon and two horses and for a while he drove regularly 
out into the country making trips that were ostensibly for 
the Yankees. But his main purpose was to smuggle medi- 
cine and things to the Confederates. The Union authori- 
ties caught onto his game presently, and confiscated his 
team. 

Mrs. Vinton, a friend of ours, was another blockade run- 
ner. She was such a sweet-toned person you would n't 
think sugar would melt in her mouth. Oh! she'd be so 
sweet to those Federal officers up at the courthouse that 
they'd do anything on earth for her; and yet she'd have 



214 The Siege of Vicksburg 

helped the Confederacy to the last drop of blood in her 
body. She lived two or three miles out and drove back 
and forth in a little spring wagon. Apparently she was 
making her living by carrying the mail and bringing in 
vegetables, but all the time she was smuggling supplies to 
the Confederates and getting information for them. 

My mother was born in Ohio, and that was one thing 
she was ashamed of and would n't tell unless she had to. 
She came South when she was twelve, and she and all the 
rest of us were thorough-going Rebels. 

Half a dozen Federal officers boarded with us for a time, 
and I was quite spiteful to them, and they were spiteful to 
me. We were always saying cutting things back and forth. 
But our family did n't have better friends in the world than 
some of those Northern men. Once Mother was very ill and 
my sister went for help to a neighbor's and found a Federal 
doctor there seeing a sick child. She got him to come to 
our house, and as soon as they arrived she took me aside 
and told me who he was. 

"H'm!" I said, "you call that man a doctor — that 
rough-looking feller! He can't come in to see my mother." 

The man needed shaving very badly, and his hat was 
crushed in, and he was in his shirt sleeves. But my sister 
urged, and I yielded; and he certainly did bring Mother 
through her illness without any serious consequences. 

We've kept up a correspondence with him ever since, 
and he always calls us "Dear Girls" in starting his letters. 
Not long ago he was here to a reunion and called on us. I 
saw him at the gate, and, thinks I, "In the name of sense, 
who is that great tall feller comin' in our yard?" 

"You don't know me, do you?" he said when he got to 
the door. 



The Soldier's Wife 215 

"Hold on," I responded, " ril place you in a minute. 
Yes, you're our Yankee doctor." 

In one of the later battles of the war my husband was 
shot in the neck. When the men who were picking up the 
wounded found him they looked at his wound and said: 
"It's no use carrying him off. He can't live." 

He held a cloth to the wound and lay there with the bat- 
tle still going on. By and by a cavalryman took pity on 
him and got him onto his horse. The cavalryman sat in 
front and my husband behind. They had n't gone far 
when the cavalryman was shot and fell off dead. My hus- 
band fell off, too, and then he crawled and crawled until he 
got to a hospital. The doctors thought his was a hopeless 
case, and he lay there two days before he got any attention. 
They never probed for the bullet. He could n't talk above 
a whisper for a year afterward, and he always had to speak 
very slowly. 

Do you know, that ball was the cause of his death? It 
shifted and pressed on a nerve going to the brain and grad- 
ually paralyzed him, but that was after he'd got to be a 
rather old man. We had to lead him around, and he did n't 
recognize any one but me. He coughed right hard and 
choked, and he'd perhaps get only one meal a day. The 
rest of what he ate all came up. Besides, he had the rheu- 
matism caused by walking in the army on ice and things 
without shoes. 

Suddenly, one Friday afternoon, his paralysis left him, 
and he asked me how I was getting along and if I had kept 
up his life insurance. I knew he was failing and I talked 
with him about the things he might like to have done. One 
question I asked him was whether he wanted the minister 
to come to see him. "I can get the Episcopal minister," I 



216 The Siege of Vicksburg 

said, "but there is n't a Presbyterian minister in the town 
just now." 

"The Episcopal minister need n't call," he said. "I was 
born a Presbyterian and I '11 die a Presbyterian." 

The next morning, while I was getting breakfast, he wan- 
dered outdoors, and we found him in the yard dazed and 
helpless. He lived for three months, but he never knew 
anything again. 



XXVI 

The Fighting Slave ^ 

I 'm seventy-four years old now. I ain't young no mo', but 
thar's nothin' the matter with me except I've got the heat 
and hit makes me scratch. I don't know how I come to be 
alive when so many others have died. Hit mus' be God is 
savin' me for some good purpose. 

I 've lived right hyar on Fort Hill on the edge of Vicks- 
burg ever since war-time, and that's long enough. Hit's 
longer 'n a man ought to stay in one place. 

I was raised in Kaintucky, and was thar until five years 
befo' the war. Then a man bought me who had a place 
near Vicksburg. I was sixteen years old and a good worker, 
but thar was one thing I would n't stand — that was 
beatin' up. If any man was tryin' to jump on me I 'd fight. 
I don't do so no mo'. I've got kind o' ca'm since the war, 
but I was a devil when I was growin' up. Oh, Lord! I was a 
finished-out little rascal then. I'd fight tryin' to git away 
from Dad when he was punishin' me. If a boy bigger 'n me 
was to whop me he'd better look out. I'd git a rock and 

^ He was a gray, sinewy old negro in a two-room shack in the ridge 
of a rough hill that was only separated from the business section of 
Vicksburg by a deep ravine. Roundabout were other shacks with 
their tiny garden patches. They clung to the steep slopes in a curious 
helter-skelter, linked together by irregular, narrow lanes. The old man 
lay half-clothed on a low bed and tossed about and scratched while he 
talked. The odors of the place were not very delectable, and I sat as 
close as I conveniently could to an open door. 



218 The Siege of Vicksburg 

slip aroun' and cut his head to the fat. Yes, I was up to all 
such didoes as that. I 'd fight white and black. 

Generally an overseer would have the slaves so cowered 
that when he snapped his whip they'd go right down on 
their knees ready for a whippin'. But I would n't. I was a 
fighter, and besides I was from Kaintucky, yo' see, whar 
they treated yo' like yo' was people. But hyar, if yo' was 
out in the cotton patch ploughin' or doin' somethin' else, 
and did n't work to suit 'em, they'd whip you and cut your 
back all to pieces. Hit would take five or six men to put me 
down. I did n't believe in so many pitching onto one. If 
thar was goin' to be any whippin' they ought to have had 
two men stan' up and fight man to man and let the best 
man beat. But a whole parcel of 'em would pile onto me 
and git me down and tie me to stakes, and I 'd cuss 'em and 
tell 'em that I 'd kill 'em when I got up. 

If I could git hold of an axe befo' they pounced on me I'd 
go to chop 'em up like I was choppin' up wood, and then 
they were 'fraid to come at me. After that perhaps I 'd run 
out in the woods to stay. They 'd think that I 'd be starvin' 
and that I would soon come back, but I 'd git all I wanted 
to eat. Plenty of hogs was feedin' in the woods, and I would 
n't let a hog pass me if I was hungry. I 'd use a club on him. 
They were not wild at all because they were used to havin' 
some one feed 'em once in a while. I could take a year of 
corn and go in my master's lot and call every hog thar. 

When I was ready to fry a piece of pork I 'd steal some- 
body's skillet, and I didn't care whether I stole it from 
white or black, so I got it. Nobody didn't hide anything 
them days, and I could always git a skillet without much 
trouble. Perhaps I could n't very well carry it along with 
me, and I 'd leave it. Then I 'd steal another when I needed 



The Fighting Slave 219 

one, or it might be I'd go and speak to some colored man 
at his cabin and say, "Partner, let me have a skillet so I can 
cook something to eat." 

"All right," he'd say, "I've got two or three, and I'll 
bring you one." 

I'd make a fire way down in the swamp in the cane 
thicket and brile or boil my meat, and the next day I 'd be 
way off somewhar else among the bears and painters. Oh, 
yes! thar was wild animals in the woods, but they never 
bothered me; and if they had thar'd been a fight just as 
sure as God made Moses. I wa'n't scared of nothin'. 

Often I'd watch whar some black folks was workin' in 
the field, and I 'd wait till the cart come with their dinner. 
As soon as the white man who brought the dinner was out 
of the way I 'd step over whar the hands were and git some- 
thing to eat. But I had to be careful about meetin' folks. 
If I was talkin' with anybody in a field, and hit look like my 
talk did n't suit him I 'd git away. 

Once in a while I 'd go to a mill and git meal, and then I 'd 
make ash cake as nice as ever yo' e't. If I could git cabbage 
leaves I 'd wrap the ash cake up in 'em bef o' I put it in the 
hot ashes. The cabbage leaves gave it a good scent, and a 
good taste. Any one who 's eaten ash cake baked like that 
would n't want it no other way; and if I was startin' gittin' 
such an ash cake ready yo'd holler, "Quick! I want some 
in a hurry." 

I used to carry along a little saw and a tin bucket and a 
spoon. Sometimes I would n't have the spoon, and I 'd use 
a stick instead. 

If it rained I 'd crawl into a holler log. I 'd stay in thar 
all night, and all day, too, if I did n't want to walk. It was 
a good place to keep any one from seein' me. Snakes and 



220 The Siege of Vicksburg 

things would be slippin' along by me to git up farther, but 
thar was room for them and me, too. Yo 'd git a wild scent 
after yo'd stayed in the woods a while, and if yo' did n't 
bother the animals they 'd never bother you. — I know 
that. Co'se, if I'd done got scared and made a rustle 
they'd 'a' bit me. But yo' got to git entangled with 'em — 
that's all the way yo' can git 'em to bother you. 

In nice weather I 'd hide in a thicket, and I 'd hear the 
birds sing and holler, "Skip-a-ree!" 

If people come hunting me I knowed I could see as far 
as they could, and I was able to dodge 'em anywhar. But 
one time they dodged me and hid and let me come right up 
to 'em. 

I was goin' along a road that day and hit took me right 
thoo a man's field. He was ploughin' his com, which was 
knee-high. Two or three colored boys and men were hoe- 
ing. The man saw me, and I started to run. "Halt!" he 
cried, but I kept on as fast as I could go. 

I passed thoo the man's yard and on into the thick woods. 
I was sure I could give him the dodge in the woods. 

He went to his house and got a gun, and him and another 
man follered me. By and by they saw me when I did n't 
see them, and they hid and let me come up to whar they 
was, like I tol' you. 

"Stop!" the man called, "stop or I'll shoot." 

"Shoot and be hanged!" I shouted, and I started to run. 
He fired at me and I heard the shots flyin' past my head. 
I stopped in about ten mile, I reckon. 

But that same day I got betrayed. They never did ketch 
me fairly. I was betrayed by my own color. I'd gone 
to a house to git something to eat, and the people thar 
sent word to their master that I was at their house. I 




THE RUNAWAY BROILS SOME ^lEAT 



The Fighting Slave 221 

did n't know nothin' 'bout that, and I stayed around and 
stayed around till they asked me to spend the night. So I 
went to bed, and I'd been in bed long enough to git asleep 
when I heard a knocking. Up I jumped and went to climb 
out of the winder, but I found two men standing outside 
with sticks ready to knock me down. 

Then I ran to the do', and I couldn't git out thar either. 
A man and a great big dog were in the way. The dog would 
have torn me to pieces. I had to give up that time. Yes, 
that's what I done. The dog backed my judgment about 
fightin'. So I just made myself easy and gin up. They 
crossed my hands and tied 'em with a rope. When they fix 
yo' that way they can carry yo' anywhar they want. They 
took me down to the gin house and tied me inside to one of 
the timbers of the building and locked the do'. 

The next day the man what cotch me carried me home in 
his buggy, and he had me tied to the seat so I could n't 
hurt him nor git away nohow. I 'd been gone near a month. 
I went off when they were choppin' cotton, and when I 
come back they was pullin' fodder in June. My master 
blamed the overseer for bein' so rough with me as to make 
me run away, and he turned him off and made him pay for 
ev'y day I 'd lost. 

I was whipped a little bit for runnin' away, but that was 
the last whippin' ever I had. My master got so he liked me, 
and he would n't let no overseer hit me. " That man is 
smart," he'd say. "He'll do what yo' tell him, but he'll 
fight if yo' try to lay on the lash." 

After the war began my master let me go down to Vicks- 
burg Sundays to work on the wharves. I got forty cents an 
hour in Secesh money. I 'd help git the cotton and the sugar 
on and off the boats. Yo' know I must have been a pretty 



222 The Siege of Vicksburg 

stout feller to roll those cotton bales and those hogsheads 
of sugar. Any time a hogshead broke yo' could eat all the 
sugar yo' wanted and take home as much as yo' pleased, 
too. 

When the army commenced to fortify the place ev'y 
planter had to send so many hands to dig trenches. The 
officers would come and press you. I was one of those that 
had to go. We camped a little outside of the town. They 
kep' us workin' pretty hard diggin' pits and makin' forts. 
But I was a man then, and they could n't hurt me with no 
work. We were out thar in the camp till the Yankees come 
and run us away. They 'd th'ow balls over disaway from 
the river thoo the co'thouse steeple, and they'd th'ow 'em 
right into camp and git us runnin' worse 'n dogs. We'd 
done camped five miles from whar their mortar boats were 
over yander beyond the bend of the river hid out of sight 
under the banks. So we thought we was out of their reach, 
but we was n't. 

They th'owed those grape and canister just for a pas- 
time. Yo' could see the shells comin' in the night red as 
blood, and we'd hide behind trees. If a shell bust whar 
some people was it would kill ev'ybody around. Sometimes 
a solid shot would hit and cut off a tree, or it might cut off 
a big branch which would fall and kill the people down be- 
low. They fired solid balls bigger 'n yo' head. 

The Rebels kep' us in that camp until they was ready to 
let us go, and hit looked like they wanted to have us git 
killed. We could n't leave the camp at night without 
strikin' a picket line, and them pickets would shoot the 
heart out of you. 

Thar was one gun back up hyar on Fort Hill that the sol- 
diers called "Whistling Dick." She growled when she fired 



The Fighting Slave 223 

like she was goin' to eat yo' up. Yo' could hear her twenty 
mile. I was hyar when they put that gun up thar, befo' 
the Yankees got so bad. Well, Whistling Dick sot up thar 
keepin' the Yankees back, and I did n't think they 'd ever 
git her, but they did. They th'owed a ball right plumb in her 
mouth and plugged her. That was done with one of their 
little jackass pieces, as they called 'em, — a gun that fired 
a steel-p'inted ball. The ball wa'n't larger 'n yo' arm, but 
the front end was finished like an augur. When it struck 
anything hit would turn and go in. Even if hit struck 
mighty thick iron hit would bore its way thoo. 

I done run away from hyar at last. That was n't a week 
befo' the surrender, I reckon. As soon as Vicksburg went 
up I started back. I come in of a night and brought my wife 
and three or fo' children. We wanted to be whar we'd 
have the Union soldiers for protection. I put my family in 
the ol' Prentiss House, which was a big hotel with twenty 
or thirty rooms. Mo' than three hundred black people was 
in thar. They died like sheep, and we lost all our children 
but one. 

Then I j'ined the army and had to go away. I sent my 
wife money, but after a while the letters was returned to me. 
In June, 1866, I was mustered out down in Mobile, and 
I ain' never been thar no mo' since. I come back hyar, and 
the Prentiss House, whar I 'd left my wife, was gone. Hit 
was torn down in a hundred pieces. Some said my wife and 
child had gone up the river on an island, but I could n't 
never find 'em or hear anything mo' of 'em. 

Well, hyar I am. I could do anything when I was 
young, but now I 'm old and cain' do nothin' but eat, drink, 
and be merry, for to-morrow I die. Thar, I done tol' yo' 
enough, and hit's all truth — yes, sir, hit's all truth! 



XXVII 

The Cave Dweller^ 

At the time Vicksburg was besieged I was a little girl only 
seven or eight years old. My father was in the ice and coal 
business here, and he had a cotton plantation up on the 
Yazoo River. He owned four hundred slaves, but lost 
them all as a result of the war. That was as unfortunate 
for them as it was for us. Abolishing slavery was a gi'eat 
mistake. The negroes are not a race that can stand being 
free. They're lazy, and you have to drive 'em if you want 
to accomplish anything. They have no capacity for sys- 
tem and order or thrift, and they are born gamblers. They 
will gamble the clothes off their backs. Oh! I know them 
just like a book. They have no cleanliness and no morals 
— none at all. They never learn anything, and education 
ruins 'em. One of their weaknesses is a great fancy for 
fine raiment, and they dress better than the whites. If you 
have a colored housemaid you're obliged to look out or she 
will go down street wearing one of your best dresses. When 
I think of what the negroes are and the way they act it 
makes me so mad I can't see. 

Paw was with us all through the war. He was a perfect 
martyr to asthma or he'd have been in the army. We had a 
nice large house on a hill in the residence section of the city, 

^ She was an energetic, elderly woman whom her sons addressed as 
"Madam." My call was in the evening, and we sat on the gallery of 
her substantial, tree-embowered town residence with the full moon 
sending its flickering beams down through the leafage. 



The Cave Dweller 225 

and right across the street was a claybank that rose from 
the wayside in a perpendicular wall. We dug out a room 
in the clay and used lumber off an old coal barge to make 
inside walls, ceiling, and floor. Tremendous posts held up 
the ceiling and made us safe from any loosening of the 
earth above. On the outside of our cave were plank slanted 
down from the face of the clay cliff, and one end of this 
plank leanto was closed in, and at the other end was a door. 
It is very dry here in summer, and we had no trouble from 
water leaking down through. In fact, I don't remember 
any special discomfort connected with the caves. 

Six of us occupied our cave — all women and children. 
We had a pail of drinking water in there that we brought 
from the house. For light we had candles that we 'd made. 
Our beds consisted of wooden horses with planks on 'em, 
and mattresses on the planks. 

Vicksburg was a place of six or seven thousand people, 
but a good many of them refugeed. A portion of those who 
remained moved into their basements during the bom- 
bardment. Cave digging, however, was very general, and 
some of the caves remained for a long time. One child only 
ten days old was carried with its mother into a cave, and I 
recall that a child two years old died in one of the caves. 
Some people stayed in the caves continually, and had their 
meals brought there from their houses. 

The bank where we dug our cave had several other caves 
in it. There were two Presbyterian ministers in town, and 
one of them came into the cave next to ours late one after- 
noon and lay down and went to sleep. By and by the lady 
who owned the cave came and found him. It was night then, 
and she told him she needed the cave for her own use, but 
the shells were flying and he was so scared he would n't 



226 The Siege of Vicksburg 

leave. She went out and sent word to the other Presby- 
terian minister, who was one of the best men on earth. 
He came and tried to get his fellow-preacher out. But 
that man was just a born coward, and urging had no ef- 
fect. It took four or five men to eject him. We chil- 
dren stood around outside laughing. His congregation 
could n't forget that incident, and he had to leave after 
the war. 

So far as damage to life and limb were concerned the 
Yankee guns that were shelling us from beyond the bend of 
the river were almost negligible, but they wanted to make 
a noise to let us know they were there, I reckon. Neverthe- 
less, there was danger enough to keep us always anxious. 
Once Paw was lying on the sofa in the hall. It was the 
middle of the day, and he'd come home hot and tired 
and was trying to get some sleep while he waited till 
dinner was ready. There he lay, and a shell went through 
the parlor and exploded in the cellar and never woke 
him. 

Early in the morning and toward night were favorite 
times for shelling. The ringing of the Catholic church bell 
for mass at six o'clock in the morning seemed to be a signal 
for the guns to begin firing. One morning an elderly Irish- 
man was coming out of the church, and a shell took off his 
arm. The news of the casualty soon reached us at our cave, 
which was right back of the church, and, out of curiosity, 
we children ran up and looked at the man where he lay in 
the vestibule on the floor. 

Another day the druggist's wife was standing at the 
back door of their house in her stocking feet, and a piece of 
a shell cut her big toe off. The doctor said the toe was taken 
off exactly like it had been amputated. 



The Cave Dweller 227 

Sometimes the Yankee gunboats fired hot shot, and one 
night those shot started a fire just below us. A whole block 
of buildings was burned, and the gunboats kept on firing 
shells into town while the buildings were burning. Well, it 
was dreadful. We all got out of the caves to look at the 
fire. The rest of the town was very much in danger, for the 
only means of fighting the fire was a hand-bucket brig- 
ade. Our house would have been burnt if Paw and the 
negroes had n't gone up on top of it with wet blankets. 
I have been very fearful of fires ever since. A fire is 
the only thing that unstrings me entirely, I feel so help- 
less to combat it. I'm afraid of snakes, but I can kill 
them. 

Paw was a good furnisher, and we did n't suffer the 
way some did for food and other things. But I know we 
had to economize in shoes. It was so difficult to get them 
that when they were outgrown or worn out we Vicksburg 
children went barefoot. That was a real hardship to me, 
for I always cut my feet. 

There was very little ice in the city. My father was an 
ice dealer, but he was shut off from his customary source 
of supply up the river in Illinois. So ice was just like gold 
in value, and he kept it for the sick and wounded. He 
would n't let a well person have a bit of it. 

We made coffee by toasting brown sugar till it was right 
hard and mixing it with toasted cowpeas and a little real 
coffee and grmding them all up together. We children were 
not supposed to have coffee, but the things children are not 
allowed to have they want to get. I 've always been crazy 
about coffee, and I used to steal it. 

One day Paw brought home some meat. He said it was 
jerked beef. We had it for dinner and thought it was very 



228 The Siege of Vicksburg 

good, but we noticed, after we were through, that Paw 
had n't eaten his, and then he told us it was mule meat. 
He had brought it home just as a joke. 

On the 6th of July, two days after the surrender, we had 
quite a number of paroled Confederate officers to dinner. 
For dessert we were to have peach cobbler, which is made 
like a pie only it is cooked in a deep dish, and real coffee 
was to be served. While the company was at table, be- 
tween two and three o'clock, a demand came from Colonel 
Bingham, Grant's adjutant, that we should move out of our 
house at once. He wanted it for his headquarters. There 
were plenty of vacant houses, but he chose ours because he 
thought it was a fine residence. 

Our guests left immediately, and the negroes got the 
peach cobbler and coffee. Father, after a good deal of effort, 
obtained permission to stay in the house over night. Even 
so we had to go to the basement. 

During the siege we had taken some sick soldiers into the 
house, as was commonly done out of kindness right through 
the town, and they stayed in the servants' room. They 
were from Louisiana, and several were Creoles who could n't 
talk English at all. The sickness from which they were 
suffering was measles. One of them died in the house and 
we buried him in the yard. Soon my youngest brother and 
sister sickened with the same disease, and they were still 
sick when we had to spend that night in the basement. The 
basement had a brick floor and was damp and they caught 
cold. The result was that my sister became totally blind. 
She only lived a short time, and we buried her near the 
Confederate soldier. My brother never got his strength 
back, and a few months later he died, too. 

The day after Colonel Bingham ordered us out we moved 



The Cave Dweller 229 

to another part of the town. He would n't allow us to take 
a piece of furniture along with us, and there was no furni- 
ture in the vacant house we moved into. We had to sleep 
on rough mattresses on the floor. That was all we could get. 
The house was an old, dilapidated building that had been 
a good deal damaged by the shells the Yankees had shot 
through it. The roof leaked like a sifter and we had an aw- 
ful time when it rained. If the storm was in the night we'd 
have to get up and move our beds. 

There was a goldfish pond at our old home. It was right 
on the lawn. One day I went to feed the fish. When I re- 
turned the family was at dinner. I told them that I had 
seen some of the soldiers digging up our garden. It tickled 
me to death to think that those men were doing some useful 
work for us. I expected Paw would be tickled, too, but he 
was n't. He got right up from table and had a talk with 
Maw in the hall. It seemed that he and she and a negro 
man had buried our silver in the garden one night. The 
soldiers must have got an inkling of the fact from the ser- 
vants. Paw went straight to General Grant and got a per- 
mit to get the silver, if it was still in the garden. The 
silver was there, but the soldiers had dug within six inches 
of it. 

Besides the silver we buried all our marble slabs that 
were then the fashion for the tops of tables, bureaus, and 
mantles. Only one came out whole. The rest had been 
broken by the jarring of the shells that exploded in the 
ground. 

Colonel Bingham had his carouses in the house so that 
the things in it suffered considerable. I believe in the end 
he went to the dogs from liquor. When he prepared to 
leave Vicksburg he packed up all our best furniture to send 



230 The Siege of Vicksburg 

north, but Grant stopped him. Grant was a very just man. 
In November we got back our house. 

We owned a number of cows and horses and mules. 
There was no stock law then, and in time of peace every 
one turned their cows loose and let them wander and graze. 
But we kept them up during the siege and tied 'em out on 
the street to eat grass. We had a very large lot adjoining 
the house, and when the town surrendered we put the 
stock in there, but the Yankees took cows, horses, mules, 
and all out of the lot just as if they belonged to 'em. The 
big frame stable that sheltered the stock was so battered 
by the shells it had to be taken down. 

The children of the neighborhood liked to play Yankees 
and Confederates in our yard. We'd have mimic battles 
which always ended in the capture of the Yankees. One 
day we were at this game around the goldfish pond. The 
pond was right deep, but it was so small that we could 
jump across to an island in the middle. We fought with 
canes for guns, but this time we used the canes to splash 
water on each other. The Yankees were on the island, and 
we splashed until they cried, "Quit!" 

As those of us who were Confederates were jumping 
across to capture them I fell in. The children could have 
saved me if they had n't lost their nerve. But they simply 
hollered. Luckily Maw heard them and came and pulled 
me out. I was nearly drowned, but as soon as I could speak 
I asked for the net that had been on my hah' — and her 
shaking me to get the water out of me! I never got the net. 
It stayed at the bottom of the pond. 

I remember one other curious incident. There were a 
good many stragglers about after the fighting in this vicin- 
ity was over, and one night some of them came onto our 



The Cave Dweller 231 

place, evidently looking for buried silver. They dug where 
they saw that the ground had been disturbed and found 
two rough wooden boxes. These they got up to the surface 
and pried open. The boxes were coffins. In one was the 
Confederate soldier who died of measles at our house, and 
in the other was my little sister. 



XXVIII 

The Captain of the Junior Volunteers ^ 

Early in the war I organized some of the Vicksburg boys 
into a military company by the name of the Junior Volun- 
teers, and I was elected captain. We were from twelve to 
fifteen years of age, and I reckon there were twenty-five or 
thirty of us. But when Vicksburg began to be threatened 
lots of people moved away, and the Junior Volunteers all 
scattered off and the company was broken up. 

My mother was one of those that refugeed. She took me 
and her three other children off across the Big Black River. 
We just packed up a few clothes and things and went out 
there and rented. That was somewhere along the first part 
of '63 when I was n't over fourteen at the furthest. My 
father was an auctioneer of new and second-hand furniture 
hyar. Most of the stores were closed and business was at a 
standstill, but he stayed to take care of our house which 
was right on the chief business street. 

The rest of us moved out in the country into a four-room 
building with a big chimney in the middle and a gallery in 
front. Our food supply was pretty scanty, and I remember 
that for one solid week we lived on rice. We boiled it and 
ate it without even sugar. 

Mother had some silver forks and spoons, and she used 

1 My informant was a man of much natural ability, yet evidently 
one on whom drink had long had an overpowering grip. We visited in 
the smoke-laden atmosphere of a town pool-room. 



The Captain of the Junior Volunteers 233 

them regular on the table. She thought we were way off 
where there was no need of hiding things. One morning 
two Northern stragglers came to the door, shortly after 
we'd finished breakfast, and wanted something to eat. 
Mother always gave such men, whether of the North or of 
the South, what we had ourselves. I never saw her refuse. 
The soldiers came in, sat down at the table, and ate. When 
they were through one of 'em picked up the spoons and ex- 
amined 'em one by one to see if they really were silver. 
Then he slipped 'em into his pocket and started to leave, 
but Mother grabbed him. 

"Let go of me," he said. 

**No, you've got my silver," she told him. 

He went into the next room with her clinging to his 
clothes, and we children looked on too frightened to move. 

"If you don't let me loose I'll hurt you!" the man 
shouted. 

But she was n't one who could be intimidated. "You 've 
got to give up that silver," she told him. 

He stopped struggling and said, "Well, I'll put it right 
back where I got it." 

So he returned to the dining-room, but instead of doing 
as he had promised he bolted out the back door with the 
silver in his hand. He ran around the house and she after 
him. Mother had a loaded six-shooter in her pocket. 
Every woman had a pocket in her dress at that time. She 
pulled the revolver out as the fellow was about to go over 
the fence, and said, "Stop right there or I'll kill you"; and 
she'd have done it, too. 

But the man brought back the silver. She had won. It 
was not, however, a victory that cost her nothing. The 
excitement of that thing nearly killed her. For weeks after- 



234 The Siege of VIcksburg 

ward the barking of a dog or any sudden noise would startle 
her so she would n't know what to do. 

After a while we heard that Grant had moved down be- 
low Vicksburg on the west side of the Mississippi and had 
crossed over to our side. It seemed to us that we'd be safer 
back in the town. So we put our trunks and heavy luggage 
on a dray, and got ready a two-seated barouche and a 
buggy. A black drove the dray, my mother and brother 
took turns driving the barouche, and I drove the buggy 
principally myself. It was late in the evening when we 
reached Vicksburg and entered our old home. 

The next day, as soon as I had a chance, I went to look 
up my Junior Volunteers. I could only find my lieutenant, 
Walter Cook. He and I went around a good deal together 
in the days that followed. 

We were under fire for the first time when the fighting 
began in the immediate vicinity about the middle of May. 
The two of us had gone a little more than two miles out of 
town and were on the Confederate left by the old Spanish 
fort. While we were standing there the Federal sharpshoot- 
ers began firing across the hilltop very rapid. 

Our men had two twelve-pound guns there that they 
were firing, and we wanted to watch them. A few rods 
away was a pair of mules hitched to an old china tree. We 
saw several branches that the Minie balls cut off fall down 
onto the mules, and we retreated to a little smooth green 
hollow. That seemed safe enough, but as we were peeping 
up over the edge a ball passed right between us, and I re- 
marked, "Walter, we better get away." 

So we slid down the hill to the Yazoo Road and went 
along back toward the town. Pretty soon we met two sol- 
diers and we had stopped to talk with them when a bullet 



The Captain of the Junior Volunteers 235 

came over the hill and struck the ground near us. It 
bounded up and hit me a rather sharp blow in the back and 
dropped down into the road. "Come on, Walter," I said, 
"we'll be killed hyar yet." 

One of the soldiers called after me; "Bud, stop and pick 
up that ball." 

But we kept on, and we did n't go slow either. Those 
Minie rifles carried three miles, and it seem like the balls 
followed us all the way to town. 

My people had a cave back of our house, under a bank. 
It was just arched out, and it had no timbers inside. The 
sides, top, and floor were plain earth. There was no door 
at the opening, but we erected a tent there. The hill was 
too low for the cave to be safe. If one of the big shells had 
come down through the roof it would have been the end of 
us. There was lots of power in those shells. When one went 
into the earth it often tore up a place large enough to bury 
a horse or a cow. Once, along about the middle of the even- 
ing, a shell exploded near by while my sister was sitting 
in the cave, and the jar of the explosion loosened a lot of 
earth and covered her out of sight. We soon got her out. 
She was stunned, but not seriously hurt. 

The sound of a shell was z-z-z-z-z-zimp! That "zimp" 
was when it hit the ground. If it burst it made a large white 
and bluish smoke. One day Mother was layin' down in the 
house. The shells began to fly, and she started for the cave. 
She had almost got to the tent when a shell went through 
it. That shell just did miss her. 

We slept in the cave at night, and we kept something to 
eat in there. Mother had a few things saved in the food 
line. We did n't go hungry, and we had plenty of coffee to 
drink made out of toasted sweet potato and parched corn. 



236 The Siege of Vicksburg 

Some did n't fare so well. One gentleman killed and cooked 
a cat, and he e't some, and his wife e't some. I reckon it 
tasted 'bout like a piece of squirrel. 

They say the soldiers e't mule meat and horse meat. 
I had an uncle who was one of Vicksburg's defenders, and 
he told us there were some Mexicans in the army who pre- 
pared the mule meat. They pulled off every bit of flesh on 
the animal — cut it off in slices like a butcher cuts steak, 
and rolled the bones and hide and all the waste down into 
the Mississippi River. They punched a little hole in each 
strip of meat and pushed a slender stick through. The 
sticks were a yard long and held quite a number of pieces. 
To cure the meat they made fires ten feet or more long. The 
firewood was from old houses that the soldiers pulled down. 
Crotched sticks three or four feet high were stuck in the 
ground at the corners of the fires to support poles on either 
side. Then the sticks with the meat were put on the poles 
over the fires. That was the way they made jerked mule 
meat, and you could n't 'a' told it, sir, from dried beef, so 
my uncle said, unless you noticed that it was coarser 
grained. 

Sometimes they boiled the mule meat. They did the 
boiling in a hollow where the enemy could n't see 'em, and 
my uncle said the odor in that hollow while the cookin' was 
goin' on was terrible. They had to just stand there and 
skim off the pots, but when the meat was done it tasted all 
right. My uncle said that the fact of the matter was they 
could n't have kept up the defense hyar nearly so long if it 
had n't been for the mule meat and the plentiful supply of 
sugar and molasses. 

The last gun was fired 'bout eight o'clock on the morning 
of July 3d. Everything seemed strangely quiet, and we 



The Captain of the Junior Volunteers 237 

heard that the city was going to surrender. I went up on a 
high place and looked off. I could see little white flags all 
along on our breastworks, and the Yankees and Rebels were 
just sitting up there enjoying themselves like brothers 
who'd met after being long parted. You would n't think 
that for weeks and weeks they'd been trying to kill each 
other. Well, our men were mighty hungry, and a man 
who's starving would be friendly with his greatest enemy in 
the world if that enemy brought him food. 

The last Confederate rashions were served on the even- 
ing of the 2d, and our soldiers had no more rashions till the 
Yankees supplied them on the evening of the 5th. It would 
have gone hard with the poor fellows if the Federals had n't 
fed them out of their haversacks. The trouble was that our 
officers were all drunk. They got into the whiskey and 
were having a big time, and no business was transacted. 

On the morning of the 4th the transports came around 
the bend of the river. Just as they got opposite Court 
Square they fired a salute. The boats tied up at the 
wharves at twelve o'clock. A flagstaff had been put up on 
the square, and some soldiers came and ran up the stars 
and stripes. 

A few days later I bought some lemons and made a 
bucket of lemonade. I stood right on the comer of the 
street under a cedar tree at the end of our yard and sold 
the lemonade all out to the soldiers. I took in the first 
greenback money I had seen — five, ten, and twenty-five 
cent pieces — and I made thirty-five cents. 

Shortly afterward, a suttler opened what was called a 
shebang, and I worked for him two or three months. We 
stood inside of his shanty and sold cakes and spruce beer, 
cider, and ice pop to the soldiers. 



238 The Siege of Vicksburg 

The Union troops, as I remember them, behaved very 
well hyar in town. They were not allowed to disturb any- 
thing, but I know they'd sometimes raid a stand in the 
market. You'd hear a racket and find they'd jostled the 
stand and sent what was on it flying. Then they 'd scramble 
around and get away with some of the oranges and things. 
However, that was just mischief, and on the whole they 
were pretty orderly. 



XXIX 
The Farm Lad ^ 

Our family lived in a 16 x 18 split log house. We never did 
like that kind of a house because after the big pine logs had 
been split and laid up for walls they'd warp and twist. 
The house had two rooms, and above the rooms was a loft 
where we stored our com and wheat and oats. At one end 
was a stone chimney. Paw bought the place in the fall of 
'59. There was one hundred and sixty acres of land, but 
I reckon not more 'n twenty-five acres was cle'red then. 
Even that had been cle'red recently, and the dead, girdled 
trees and the stumps stood pretty thick in the fields that 
we cultivated. All through this region was the finest kind of 
timber — hard pine, red oak and white oak, hickory, and 
poplar. We've got timber here now, but nearly all the 
good is gone. 

Them times they'd have what they called "log-rollings " 
when they wanted to cle'r land so they could plough it. 
One or two men could n't do anything with the big logs, 
and the neighbors would come and help pile 'em so they 
could be burned. 

Same way in corn-shucking — it was fashionable to have 
the neighbors help. The home family would gather in the 
corn ears from the field and pile 'em near the crib. When 

1 The land that had belonged to his father he now tilled. We talked 
together one mild spring noon sitting on the vine-draped porch of his 
little farmhouse whence we could look off across the battlefield. 



240 Chickamauga 

the men and boys of the neighborhood came at the ap- 
pointed time and got to work they threw the ears into the 
crib as they shucked 'em. They 'd tell jokes and have a 
big time. Down under the pile of corn was a jug of liquor, 
and they'd shuck fast to git at it. Perhaps there 'd be an- 
other jug that would be passed around a little while they 
worked, and some of the men might git boozy and be 
rather rough, but they hardly ever did any harm. It 
was good liquor — not like the hquor you buy now. That 
is poison to some extent, and it makes men crazy drunk so 
they kill each other, and when a man goes home drunk he 
don't know his wife and baby. 

I had an uncle in the Northern army and one in the 
Southern army fightin' each other. They did n't come 
home till the war ended. My father was a Union man, but 
I expect the Rebels would have conscripted him when they 
were picking up recruits, only he was gray and looked 
older 'n he really was. 

Some fellers went nearly wild they were so afraid they'd 
be conscripted, and when a man could git across the Fed- 
eral lines he'd go. But if the Rebels caught him goin' 
they'd string him. A good many refugeed south, but that 
did n't better the matter. Sooner or later they were over- 
taken. 

The battle was fought here in September, 1863, when I 
was about eight years old. The Rebel army had been in the 
vicinity all along befo' that, and occasionally some of the 
soldiers would come and take a horse — "press it into ser- 
vice," they said. Sometimes they'd kill a hog and skin the 
hams and carry 'em off, and leave the balance. We'd 
hardly ever see 'em kill an animal, but we'd find the car- 
cass afterward. Their forage wagons would come around 



The Farm Lad 241 

and go into our fields and take the oats, and the sheep. 
We had hogs, sheep, and cattle, plenty of 'em, then. Some- 
times we'd git pay for the things that were taken, and 
sometimes we would n't. But when we did git pay it was 
in Confederate money which was n't of much value. 

We did n't fear the regular armies as we did the guerillas. 
There were two bands here. One claimed to be Yankees 
and the other Rebels. But they were just robbers and both 
mean alike — that was all we could make out of 'em. The 
Rebel band would raid north, and the Yankee band would 
raid south. Sometimes they'd whip a man if they thought 
he belonged to the other side. They prowled around on 
their horses and went in the houses and pilfered. Generally 
their raids were made at night. 

I remember once some of 'em drove right up in our yard 
after we'd all gone to bed. I expect it was ten or 'leven 
o'clock. We all slept in the living room. There were two 
beds in the other room, but that room was for company. 
The guerillas knocked, and Mother got up and opened the 
door, which was fastened with a wooden button. Several 
men came in. They were dressed like Rebel soldiers. One 
of 'em with a big revolver had Paw set by the fire. Of course 
Paw did n't show any fight or order 'em out. He knew what 
they was up to. They'd been through the valley before. 

We children stayed in bed. There was five of us, and we 
was skeered. We did n't like to see such visitors that time 
of night. They asked for food. We was good livers and had 
plenty to eat and wear — such as it was. The guerillas 
cooked some of our meat by the fireplace. While a few of 
'em was doin' that the others looked around to see what we 
had that was worth carryin' off. They took some of our 
homespun clothing and a couple of quilts and a counter- 



242 Chickamauga 

pane. They did n't find any silverware. We did n't have 
any those days. After they'd eaten they left. 

The Yankee guerillas was commonly known as Wilder's 
Thieves. They taken the last horse we had. She was a 
little claybank filly, two years old — old enough to work 
pretty well. We had her grinding cane to make sorghum 
molasses, and they taken her right out of the harness. We 
asked 'em to leave an old mule we had that was about wore 
out, but they was kind of hardhearted and they went off 
with both the animals. 

Befo' that, the Rebels had taken a mare and a young 
horse; so afterward Paw had to do our farm work with a 
yoke of oxen. It 's a pretty hard task to plough with cattle. 
They're contrary and slow and likely to make a man say 
bad words. It was worst workin' in the bottoms with 'em. 
They attracted the mosquitoes and gnats, and you'd be 
mighty near eaten up by them little pests. But you had a 
hard time in the bottoms then anyway. If you was fishing 
it was slap, slap, slap, all the time. The mosquitoes was so 
bad you could n't hold the pole. 

My wife's home was not very far from ours. She was a 
young girl in them days, but her pappy and mommy were 
tolerable old. Her pappy ran a gristmill, and he ground for 
both armies while they were around in this neighborhood. 
When the Union army was passing through here some of 
the soldiers went in and searched the house, and they 
jerked the quilts all off the beds to carry away with 'em. 
My wife's mommy had pieced a quilt of the clothes of her 
first baby that had only lived to be three years old, and she 
begged 'em to leave that, but they did n't care, and they 
taken 'em all. My wife's pappy and mommy needed those 
quilts to the end of their lives to keep 'em warm. 



The Farm Lad 243 

They had a jar of lard rendered out, and the soldiers 
emptied it into a kettle that wool had been dyed in to make 
jeans, and that colored the lard. Those soldiers went out 
to the stable and stabbed one of the horses that was fas- 
tened up in there, and they robbed the bees. Yes, they 
burnt the bees and carried off the honey. They took 
the cows, too, and left one little lousy calf. But that calf 
lived to be a cow, and she gave the family milk till she was 
twenty-two years old. 

I know those thieving soldiers are all dead now, or I been 
hoping so for the last forty or fifty years. They were a bad 
lot, but I don't feel no animosity — at least not toward 
them that are buried. If any are livin' I don't doubt 
they're sittin' up back on a pension. Most of the good 
men up North hired substitutes. The few good men who 
were in the Yankee army were officers that came along to 
keep the soldiers out of jail, I reckon. 

Chickamauga Creek is down in the hollow here. They 
say the name means River of Death. That's a pretty good 
name for a battleground stream. Rosecrans came march- 
ing through the mountain passes from Chattanooga, and 
we was in the Union lines just befo' the battle opened. On 
Friday evening, September 18th, the cavalry had a pretty 
smart skirmish. The Rebels made it a little too hot for 
the enemy, and the Federals fell back. It was very dry 
weather, and I noticed that the dust had settled so thick on 
the cavalry that passed our place we could n't hardly tell 
the color of their clothes. 

Several families above here were ordered out, because it 
looked as if there 'd be fightin' on their places. Two of the 
families came to our house and stayed a day and two 
nights. 



244 Chlckamauga 

The armies fought pretty much all of Saturday and Sun- 
day without a stop except at night. They were willing to 
cook and eat then. The fighting was all of a mile or more 
away, and we could n't see no distance because of the 
woods, but we could see the smoke and dust rising above 
the trees, and we could hear the guns. Well, sir, the can- 
non fired so fast we could n't count the bangs, and the small 
arms sounded like a storm. Sometimes we'd hear the men 
chopping timber to try to make breastworks. 

On Sunday a Union officer misunderstood an order. A 
gap was left in the Yankee lines, and the Confederates 
pushed into it and swept the right wing off the field. The 
rest of the army was under Thomas. He planted his twen- 
ty-five thousand men on a curving hill called the Horse- 
shoe, and every time the Confederates attacked him he 
drove 'em back. That's where he got his nickname, the 
"Rock of Chickamauga.'* He stood his ground for six 
hours till night, and then got away in the darkness to the 
mountains and joined the rest of the army in Chattanooga. 
He had lost ten thousand men. 

The battle days was pretty tolerable hot, but Monday 
was cooler, and that night there was a frost. A Rebel 
soldier who'd been wounded in the arm came to our house 
the next morning. He did n't have any coat, and he 'd lain 
out on the ground over night, and he was shivering. Not 
much attention was paid to those that was n't wounded 
bad. They just let such go and shift for themselves. Father 
gave this man a coat and carried him part way to Ring- 
gold, which was our clostest market town. 

About the time Paw got back another Rebel came and 
said his brother had been killed in the battle, and he 
wanted a box made to bury him in. Father walked with the 



The Farm Lad 245 

soldier two mile over to the sawmill where he got some 
boards. They nailed up a box that did for a coffin, and 
Father helped the man bury his brother. 

We boys wanted to go onto the battlefield and pick up 
guns and the like o' that, but Maw knew what a sickening 
sight the battlefield was with the dead men and dead horses, 
and she would n't let us go over there. So we did n't get to 
see anything. 

All the food at my wife's house was stolen, and the morn- 
ing after the battle they did n't have a bite to eat. Her 
pappy had to wait until somebody brought a little corn to 
mill. He always took one eighth for toll, and as soon as he 
ground some corn that day he carried his share of the meal 
to the house, and his wife made com bread. 

He could have put in a claim for what the soldiers took, 
but so many rascals sent in false claims he was ashamed to 
ask for anything. Men who never did have property to 
lose would get the congressmen to work for 'em, and the 
biggest liars got the most money; but my wife's pappy was 
an honest man. 

If we could get that money now, which was rightfully 
due him for what the government troops destroyed or took 
from his place, we'd put up gravestones to mark the old 
people's graves. We been wantin' to buy 'em stones ever 
since they died, but we've never felt hardly able to pay 
what the stones would cost. 

At our place we saved our wheat and most of our oat 
crop the year of the battle, but we lost our com. I expect 
we had eighteen or twenty acres in com, but we did n't get 
to gather any of it. The Rebel wagon trains went out 
through the country foraging, and they drove into our 
corn after it was pretty well matured and pulled the ears 



246 Chickamauga 

off. There was no paying for it in the game, and there was 
no use of kicking. People could n't help themselves. For a 
while the citizens here like to have starved. Some would go 
to the commissary, and they'd be given rashions if they 
put up a good excuse. 

By and by the Yankees got possession of the region. 
They had plenty of good meat — pickled pork, they called 
it — and they had hardtack and coffee and sugar. They'd 
swap those things with us for barter like chickens, eggs, 
and butter. 'T was n't long befo' we had half a bushel of 
coffee in a sack. They'd mighty near give their hardtack 
to the citizens they were so sick of that. 

So we got along somehow or 'nother till the war ended, 
and then we had a chance to git ahead a little. 



XXX 

The Soldier's Son^ 

My father was a soldier, and he was away in the Southern 
army. We lived on the pike road east of Chickamauga 
Creek, and on Friday, the day that the skirmishmg began, 
half a dozen Union officers stopped at our house and told 
us that a battle was coming. After they left us we watched 
'em as they rode along the pike. Every now and then they 
stopped and looked back. A lot of their troops soon fol- 
lowed, and we got so uneasy that we went down to Grand- 
mother's just across the creek. She had a double log house 
with a big entry between the two parts. 

By four o'clock the face of the earth east of the creek was 
covered with Federal soldiers. The roads was full, and the 
men had taken down the fences and marched into the 
fields, and those was full. But pretty soon the Rebels 
rushed 'em across the creek, some by way of the bridge, 
and some through the water. 

Mother was anxious. Oh, Lor', yes! I guess she was; and 
she stuck up a stick at the front door and tied a sheet on it 
to make a flag. Then she shut all the doors and had us five 
children lay down under the bed. She and my old grand- 

' He was a gray, bronzed farmer. I found him working with two 
colored men in a big cotton patch. He was following along behind a 
mule hitched to a seed-planter, but he stopped to visit with me at the 
end of a row. There he stood still gripping the handles of his machine 
ready to resume his task as soon as we finished talking. 



248 Chickamauga 

mother set right by the bed in then- chairs. They had n't 
been there long when an officer come to the house and 
wanted to know what that white sheet meant. Mother 
told him it was to protect us, and he said he'd order the 
soldiers not to get behind the house for a breastwork. 

By that time the fields around the house were full of men 
on the trot, and we could hear the bullets spat the garden 
paling. Then, do you know, in the midst of the fightin', a 
man come up to the door and knocked and fell right into 
the room. He'd been shot through the body in the field 
north of the house. His blood stained the floor, and up to 
last year, when a cyclone tore the house to pieces, that 
bloodstain could be seen on the floor boards. 

We'd hardly got the wounded man onto a cot out in the 
entry when another wounded man was brought there. He 
was n't hurt as bad as the first one, and, bless your life! he 
just cussed and cussed till the next day when the doctors 
got to our place. I saw 'em carry him to the yard where 
some hospital tents had been put up, and soon they had 
him asleep on a table and cut off his leg. After that they 
tuck him into a tent. The other man died there in our en- 
try while the battle was still goin' on. 

I don't think the fighting that Friday lasted more than 
half an hour. Then a heap of men come to our well to get 
water. They flocked into the kitchen, too, and they raked 
coals out over the hearth and began frying their meat. 
Mother had to get an officer to send 'em out. 

There was no fighting right around our house Saturday 
and Sunday, but we could see the smoke of the battle over 
in the trees and hear the cannons turn loose. Well, sir, 
there was a pretty heavy noise. It was just a roar. One 
cannon ball cut our front gatepost down, and we could see 



The Soldier's Son 249 

the bumbshells hght on our fields and make the dust fly. 
The battle was a Southern victory. The Yankees said they 
retreated, but they run back. 

After it was all over I and my brothers picked up as 
many bullets as we could find and carried 'em home. Among 
other things we come across a broken cannon cassion with a 
box on it that had a hundred little sacks of powder inside. 
Each sack held a pound or two — just a load. We had fun 
with those sacks for a month, I guess. We'd string the 
powder from one of 'em along on a plank and touch a 
match to it to see it bum. Sometimes we'd wet it, and 
then it would fiz and sparkle as it burned on the plank. We 
did n't know the danger of the thing. One of us found a 
gun. The barrel was bent as if some one had struck it 
against a tree. We picked up several boxes of cartridges in 
the woods, and we fired the cartridges off in that bent gun. 
Bumbshells were lyin' around everywhere, and I know 
Mother pried the tap out of one with a table knife. That 
was pretty risky, and so was our fooling with the gun. 

The troops tuck a heap of stock during the battle or 
just afterward. They tuck our cow, and that hurt us 
mighty bad. Children have to have milk. They tuck our 
mare, too. Mother had a hog in the pen back of our 
house. It was a fat, nice little hog that I s'pose would 
weigh a hundred and fifty pounds net. When we went 
home the hog was gone. We found a butcher knife and 
scabbard in a crack of the hogpen fence. I've got that 
knife yet. 

Things was so unsettled that several families here de- 
cided to refugee, and our family was one of 'em. We had 
a pair of oxen, and a pair of steers, and we hitched 'em to 
a couple of canvas-covered wagons that we fixed up, and 



250 Chickamauga 

started. My old grandfather was along driving, and one 
of my uncles who was home from the army on a furlough 
was with us. We stopped side of the road to cook our 
meals, and at night some of us lay in the wagons and others 
in tents that we put up. Oh! people can live pretty rough 
when they have to. We travelled eighty or ninety miles 
south to a place where we had kinsfolks. It took us a week. 

The next year we went to work to make a crop there. 
Grandfather couldn't help. You'd hardly ever see him 
out in the field. He was just settin' around the house. I 
and two cousins made the crop. We was from ten to four- 
teen years of age. My mother and grandmother and aunt 
did the planning. Us boys had been raised on a farm, and 
we knew how to work. We planted the garden and grew 
cabbage, beans, and Irish potatoes. 

After the surrender we went back to Chickamauga, and 
Father come home with an old horse he'd picked up. 
The South had lost, and it was no wonder, for we had to 
fight the whole world. You know, you Yankees sent to 
England and Italy for soldiers. 

Our family was in hard circumstances — everybody 
was — and at first we had to draw com from the govern- 
ment to feed our horse, and to live on, and to plant. I 
don't know what we'd 'a' done if we had n't drawed that 
com. We used it mighty sparingly. 

There was a heap to do to get started. We had to make 
some rails and build fences, and we did n't raise much the 
first year. But the second year we got good big fields 
fenced and done a little better. 



XXXI 

A Boy on a Plantation ^ 

We had a six-room farmhouse on the south edge of the 
battlefield. It was a double house, one story high, and 
between the two parts was a hallway that was open at 
front and back. Near by was a whole lot of darky houses. 
They were log cabins with two rooms. We owned four or 
five hundred slaves, little folks and all. 

Just before the battle my father refugeed south about 
seventy-five miles with the niggers. He went with three 
wagons, and there was hogs and cattle to drive and some 
loose horses. Most of the niggers walked, but the little 
fellers rid in the wagons. 

After Father went away the only ones of our family 
left here at home were my mother and my two sisters and 
me. Three of my brothers were in the army. 

The fightin' begun here on a Friday. Late that day 
the Union troops done passed over on this side of Chicka- 
mauga Creek. The Confederates was close behind 'em, 
and some of the Yankees waded through the water at the 
fords, and some crossed on trees they cut down. 

We had a patch of sorghum that was getting about ripe 

1 He had become a battleground guide and he wore an official badge 
on the lapel of his coat. His hair and beard were white, but he retained 
a good deal of youthful health and vigor. We sat on a settee in a public 
shelter at the edge of the battleground. Other guides were there, and 
some of Uncle Sam's soldier boys from an adjacent army post gath- 
ered about listening and commenting. 



252 Chickamauga 

enough to grind, but so many of the boys came tramping 
through it that it was just ruined. Some cut off stalks, 
and brought 'em along. The stalks are sweet, you know, 
and they wanted 'em to chew. 

Quite a number of the soldiers stopped in our yard to 
wait for orders. They were setting around cutting up 
sorghum stalks into pieces short enough to get into their 
haversacks when a shell hit one of the fellers and took 
the top of his head off. The shell went into the ground and 
never busted. It scattered the man's brains around on the 
ground, and the chickens e't 'em up. 

Me and my sister Mary was lookin' out of a window. 
She was twenty years old then, and I was twelve. We saw 
the man keel over when the shell hit him, but we did n't 
know he was killed, and we went down where he was. 
The soldiers picked him up and put him in an army wagon 
and took him off a little way and buried him. He's still 
there in an unmarked grave. 

Things looked dangerous at our place, and an officer 
ordered us out. He had a couple of cavalrymen escort us 
through the lines to the home of a neighbor. Guards were 
posted at our house to keep everything all right and not 
let the boys carry off our property. But we were anxious 
to get back and take care of the place ourselves, and it was 
so quiet after dark that we came home about nine o'clock. 

The Yankees had retreated, and there was a Confed- 
erate camp beside the creek. We could look down on the 
open field where it was and see the tents and campfires and 
we could see the men moving around. There's always a 
little stir going on in a camp. 

Early Saturday morning these troops marched away 
to go to battle. Soon we heard the noise of guns, and by 



A Boy on a Plantation 253 

and by prisoners begun to be sent back. There were so 
many that their captors fenced in about three acres for a 
prison pen, not far from our house, and stationed guards 
all the way round at intervals. They put tents in the 
inclosure for the wounded prisoners. Our whole place was 
just a hospital. We had to live in the dining-room for a 
few days. The doctors took possession of all the other 
rooms and the hallway, and they used the outdoor kitchen 
and the darkies' cabins, too. 

The battle had n't been going long when one of my 
brothers was brought to the house wounded. A few hours 
later another brother who had been hurt in the fight was 
brought there. The first one stayed with us several 
months, got well, and went back to the army. The other 
had been hit in the body by a grape shot, and I don't be- 
lieve he ever spoke. He came in an ambulance, and he 
died as the men took him out. They brought the body 
right into the dining-room and left it there. The next 
morning we had the neighbors come and make a coffin and 
put the body into it. Then they lifted the coffin into a 
spring wagon. There were a number of other wagons, and 
we all rode to the cemetery, five miles away. Some of the 
neighbors sang at the grave, and there we buried my 
brother while the battle was still goin' on. 

Monday the fightin' was over, and several of us boys 
went to look around on the battlefield. We went where 
there 'd been some of the hottest fighting. Guns and 
shells and bullets were strewed about, and the trees were 
all battered and splitted up, and lots of dead men and 
dead horses were lying there — you bet there was! It was 
horrible, but we got used to it. 

A Union force came back under a flag of truce to bury 



254 Chickamauga 

the dead Yankees. They just rolled each man in his blan- 
ket, if he had one, and laid him away in a shallow grave. 
The work was done hurriedly and more or less carelessly, 
and here and there they'd leave an arm or a leg sticking 
out of the earth. The battlefield was all cleaned up in a 
week. Some claimed that bodies lay here on the ground 
for months afterward, but I never saw anything thataway. 
Soon after the battle the prisoners that had been held 
on our place were marched off ten miles to Ringgold and 
shipped on a train down South. Then we were able to 
start cleaning up and making what we could of the 
wrecked plantation that was left to us. 



XXXII 

The Runaway Slave ^ 

I'm older maybe than you think, but I don't know just 
exactly how ol' I am myself. You see our owners would n't 
tell us our age. It was the law that every slave man had 
to work on the road six days a year from the time he 
was sixteen till he was sixty. So the owners would hold 
back the ages of the slave boys 'bout two years to save that 
much time for work on the plantations. Then, too, if your 
owner wanted to sell you, he'd pretend you were younger 
than you really was. We was classed right with the brutes, 
and they did as they pleased with us. I have n't seen my 
father and mother since I was twelve or thirteen years ol'. 
They were sold to a speculator way down South. It was 
no more to separate a nigger and his wife from their child 
than a cow from her calf. 

I used to pray for the time to come when I 'd be free. 
One morning I was walkin' along ploughin'. It was 'bout 
'leven o'clock, I reckon; and I heard a voice say, "You'll 
be free some day — just as free as the man that owns 
you." 

The voice seemed to come from above, and I turned 
round and leaned back between my plough handles and 

1 We sat on the piazza of a tidy house in one of the negro sections of 
Chattanooga. My companion was an amiable, leisurely old man, as 
black as midnight. He recalled with evident relish that most exciting 
period of his life, and the visit was a mutual pleasure. 



9,56 Chickamauga 

looked up. But I did n't see anything. It was just an 
ordinary voice, and yet I felt sure it was the voice of the 
Lord. I knew He would fulfil what He had promised, and 
I never doubted afterward that I would be free. 

But the older I got the more I grieved about my father 
and mother. I'd shed tears as I was doin' my work. Then 
ag'in I heard a voice while I was ploughin'. It was in the 
evening. I 'd got to the end of a furrow and was ready to 
start back when a voice said, "If you would marry some 
one that you love you would n't grieve this way." 

The voice was the same kind, precisely, that I 'd heard 
before. I could n't see anything when I looked up except 
the sky and the elements above. That was long, long ago, 
and I have n't heard no such voice since. But one thing 
I noticed — both prophecies come true. Just as the voice 
spoke so it was. Not long after I got that second mes- 
sage I married, and I did quit grieving. I had something 
that comforted me and satisfied my mind. 

My marster's place was 'bout twenty miles south of 
Chattanooga over the line in Georgia. We had a good 
many alarms thar with the different armies marching 
around the country, and considerable refugeein' was done 
— sometimes to the near mountains, sometimes off down 
South. Once my marster had me refugee with his two 
daughters. The oldest was fifteen and the other twelve. 
He had me hitch a couple of mules to a canvas-covered 
farm wagon and take the girls and a tent eight miles to 
Pigeon Mountain. He said he knew a citizen named Hall 
who'd gone thar to camp in the mountain gap, and he 
told me just whar to find him. We was to stay with him 
over night, and then word would be sent to us what to do 
next. 



The Runaway Slave 257 

The sun was only an hour high when we started, and 
it was getting dusky by the time we come to whar the man 
was supposed to be. But he was n't thar. We searched 
around till nine o'clock. Then we struck a man who said : 
"I know whar Mr. Hall is. He's six miles from hyar. 
You can't find him to-night." 

It was dark, and the girls did n't care to travel any 
further. So we stopped right thar, and I started a little 
fire and made some coffee and fried some meat. We was 
in the woods and thar was n't no house near, but we had 
a good covered wagon, and after we finished supper the 
girls went to sleep in the front part of the wagon, and I 
went to sleep in the back part. It was a wild, lonely place, 
but I was n't feared of nothin' in them days. I 'd fight 
with my fists if I did n't have anythin' else handy. 

Next morning we had breakfast, and 'bout ten o'clock 
a white boy come on horseback with orders from my 
marster for us to go back home. So I hooked up and lit 
out from thar. The mules wanted to get home as much 
as I did, and we was n't long on the road. 

Early in the fall of '63 Rosecrans come over the moun- 
tain. That was what skeered my marster. He asked my 
advice — which was it best to do — run or stand? 

I said: "You know you can't make nothin' runnin' 
ahead of two armies. You'd fare better by staying." 

But thousands of people went south with their slaves. 
Often a planter took every soul off his place. Mostly 
the darkies went by wagon — horse power — but plenty 
of 'em walked. Their marsters could n't get 'em all out. 
The Yankees come too quick, but that did n't prevent 
the Confederate cavalry from slipping back and helping 
to bring away a lot of the others. Every black man that 



258 Chickamauga 

the Confederates ketched goin' toward the Yankee lines 
they killed anyhow. They'd leave no life in him, and if 
they ketched a slave woman they'd treat her the same. 
Old Hood and Gatewood, who commanded the Southern 
cavalry, were bad fellers. They were scoutin' around 
between the two armies, and you'd get news of 'em all 
the time doin' their devilment. 

One quiet morning we heard drums and fifes seven or 
eight miles away at Bluebird Gap. I knew tereckly it was 
not Confederate music. Oh, yes sir-ee! I could tell the 
difference, and I spoke to my old boss about it, and said, 
"The Yankees are comin'." 

He stood thar and listened at it. Then he shook his 
head and tol' his wife: "He's right. Those ain't our men. 
Well, thar's nothin' to hender them comin' if they want 
to." 

All that night the Southern cavalry was retreatin' past 
our place, and some of 'em was goin' pretty peart, too. They 
thought the Union army was right behind 'em. A few 
days afterward the battle of Chickamauga was fought. 
It was twelve miles away, but we could hear it all. We 
could even hear the men hollerin' when they charged. 
Rosecrans was beaten. He'd run afoul of the enemy with- 
out enough men, and the Confederates let into him so 
fierce he was glad to retreat back to Chattanooga. 

The second day of the battle I decided to go to the 
Yankees. That wasn't on account of the way I was 
treated. No, sir! My folks was good folks to me — I'll 
say that. But I did n't want to keep on bein' a slave, and 
I did n't want to be refugeed south, which was what I 
expected, no matter who beat in the battle, unless the 
Yankees was all driven out of the country. 



The Runaway Slave 259 

Our white people toF us terrible tales 'bout the folks 
up North. They said the Yankees had a horn right in the 
middle of their foreheads. But I did n't believe all I heard, 
and I was determined I'd run away. Mose Matthews and 
two other young fellers agreed to go with me. Thar was 
others who would have liked to escape, but they was 
afeard to tackle it. 

We started that night. I guess it was twixt three and 
four o'clock. Daybreak was on when we was six or seven 
miles from home. We did n't carry a thing but some 
bowie knives that a party of Southern soldiers had left on 
the place. Our intention was to go to Chattanooga, though 
we thought we'd get into the Union lines sooner. Any- 
way we was certain we could make the trip that day. 

We kept to the road until after sunup, when we saw a 
man named Jack Spears out at the woodpile in front of 
his house. He knowed some of us, and he hollered, "Hello! 
boys, whar are you-all goin'?" 

"To Chattanooga," Mose said. 

"But the Yankees have got Chattanooga," Jack said. 

"Yes, that's why we're goin' thar," Mose tol' him. 

Mose ought not to have said that. We kept right on, 
and I tol' the others: "Jack '11 give the alarm, and we'll 
soon be follered. Now you fellers can do what you please, 
but I'm goin' to take to the woods." 

They all went with me. We had n't gone far when we 
heard the sound of horses on the road comin' in our di- 
rection — plockity, plockity; plockity, plockity — and 
tereckly six men on horseback come into sight. One of 
'em was Jack Spears on his ol' gray mare, and the rest 
was Rebel soldiers. We were on a hill at the edge of the 
woods half a mile from the road, and the men never saw 



260 Chickamauga 

us but galloped on out of sight. We knew they'd stop 
befo' they reached the Yankee pickets so as not to get 
halted, and then they'd come back. 

So we went on roundabout, and that took us across the 
battlefield. We did n't see a living soul thar, but I declare 
it was something to look at. The dead bodies lay so thick 
we could have walked on 'em for half a mile. Big trees 
grew on the battlefield, and some that would measure 
three and a half feet through had been cut up into fraz- 
zles, and the bushes had all been mowed down by the 
bullets and shells. A cyclone never did do any worse harm 
than that — no, sir! 

We come right into Chattanooga, and the Yankee offi- 
cers told us we could join the army or go to work as la- 
borers for the government. I accepted the team business 
for my part. But I had n't been at that long when I be- 
gan to study on goin' back to get my wife, and I kept 
after the officers to let me go out. 

At last they give me a pass. That was 'bout sixteen 
days after I got to Chattanooga. In the evening I had 
some pistols and a bowie knife buckled onto me, and I 
was settin' thar with several other men in front of a tent 
eatin' and laughin' and talkin'. 

"I'm goin' back to whar my wife is," I said, "and if 
any one bothers me thar '11 be a row. If they ketch me 
they'll kill me, but I'll never be taken alive. They can 
leave me a greasy spot on the ground befo' I'll let 'em 
capture me. Long as I can stand up I intend to fight, and 
if I fall I '11 keep on fightin' until I can't move." 

Just then my wife walked in. I would n't have taken a 
thousand dollars for her comin' and savin' me the trouble 
of makin' that trip. r 




THE SLAVE WIFE JOINS HER HUSBAND 



The Runaway Slave 261 

I 'd been married a year. My wife was owned by a man 
who had a big place near my marster's. She had refugeed 
once, and they made hei do everything — the cooking, 
washing, milking, and ironing — and she was n't able 
to stand up to it all. They nearly worked her to death, for 
she was n't fiery or anything of that kind and did what 
she was told to do without complainin'. She fared so 
rough I did n't want her to refugee ag'in. So befo' I left I 
posted her to run away when they began carryin' the slaves 
south, and she done like I told her. 

Pretty soon her marster took nearly all his slaves off 
on Rebel cavalry horses. My wife got away and went to 
the house of an old granny lady that was crippled, and 
stayed over night. An uncle by marriage and another 
neighbor man was gettin' ready to run away to Chatta- 
nooga, and she bundled up and come with them. She 
carried a little pillow-slip of clothes on her head. I 'd only 
brought away what clothes I had on my back. 

I drew a tent from the government, and then I went to 
work and made it equal to a house. The tent part did for 
the roof, and I planked up the sides as high as my head, 
usin' old bo'ds and stuff that belonged to the army. You 
see pieces of plank that had been used to hold on goods 
sent by freight was always lyin' around, and thar was 
plenty of empty boxes; so it was n't much trouble to build 
a pretty good little house. I made the floor out of sugar 
boxes that I took to pieces, and I used gunny sacks for a 
carpet. The chimley I built out of brickbats and mud, 
and I made a good fireplace, and we got pots and skillets 
so we could do the cooking. 

Chattanooga was only a steamboat landing then, and 
the place was full of ponds, bullfrogs, water moccasins, 



262 Chickamauga 

and everything else. It was just a village, and if you got 
on top of a hill you could count every house around in ten 
minutes. The houses were thinned out some during the 
fightin' that fall. I guess thar mought have been thirty 
of 'em burned. 

The Rebels found us in the town, and they cut us off 
from the railroad so all our supplies had to be brought 
by wagon train. I was in one of the wagon trains and 
driv' back and forth hauling for the commissary. Thar 
was one spell of nine days when we was cut off entirely 
from our food supplies. But it would have taken a 
pretty good twist to get those Yankees out of Chatta- 
nooga. They'd have died fightin' befo' they'd 'a' given 
the town up. The soldiers got mighty mad 'bout thar 
bein' so little to eat. "Let us have our way," they said, 
*'and we'll whip the Rebels and get some food. We'd 
soon have sowbelly and hardtack." 

They were so near starved that they would pick up 
any little piece of hardtack they found in the mud of the 
streets. For a while they lived on parched corn and water, 
and I tell you such food goes mighty well if you can't get 
anything else. Probably a soldier could do mo' marchin' 
and fightin' on that than on richer food. I've heard tell 
of two fellers who was goin' to be hung, and the judge made 
a proposal to 'em. "We won't hang you," he said, "but 
we'll keep you in jail, and feed you on bread and water. 
You can have com bread or wheat bread — we'll give 
you your ruthers." 

One chose wheat bread in preference, and he soon 
played out and died. The other undertook com bread, 
and he lived and fattened. That's what he did, and it 
proved that corn bread is a heap the healthiest bread. He 



The Runaway Slave 263 

seen his partner left him, and many another man's head 
was cold befo' hisn. In fact, he lived so long that the judge 
had to find some other way of gettin' rid of him. 

What I was aimin' to say was that we fared pretty hard 
in Chattanooga for a while, but we did n't starve to death. 
That was whar the Rebels was fooled ag'in. We had to do 
some heavy iightin', but it was they who did the runnin' 
afterward and not us. 



XXXIII 

The Paroled Soldier ^ 

When the war began I was goin' to school at an academy 
twenty-six mile north of Chattanooga. The war broke 
the school up. I expect it had as many as one hundred 
and fifty students, and forty-four of 'em was old enough 
to become soldiers. About half of the forty-four went 
across the mountain and joined the Federal army, and 
the other half enlisted on the Southern side. 

The principal of the academy was a strong Union man, 
but after the school had broken up he come down with a 
serious sickness. He thought that sickness was a judg- 
ment because he'd been goin' against his state. So when 
he got well he went into the Rebel army, and he was a ser- 
geant in my regiment. 

The assistant principal was from Ohio, but he was the 
worst Rebel we had in the school. He would have gone 
into the Southern army if his mother had n't insisted that 
he should come home. His last word when he left was 
that he would be back to lead us, and the next we heard 
was that the feller was a Federal lieutenant. 

I was raised on a farm right out north of Chattanooga 
close to Orchard Knob. The Knob is a pretty good-sized 

^ He was a hearty, full-bearded veteran whose hair was as yet more 
black than white. I visited him in the pleasant, modern city house 
where he lived. While he told of his experiences he often chuckled over 
incidents and hardships that originally had been entirely serious, but 
which the softening touch of the passing years had made humorous. 



The Paroled Soldier 265 

height that rises out of the level ground just like a round 
potato hill. We had a very good framed house there \^1th 
two rooms in the main part and two rooms in an ell. My 
brother-in-law was running the farm. 

The Rebels was picking up all the recruits they could, 
and he was afraid they'd conscript him. He was a quiet, 
peaceable man who did n't interfere with anybody's busi- 
ness, and, besides, he was a Union man. Naturally the 
idea of bein' forced into the Rebel army did n't suit him. 
So he changed the birth date in his Bible to make him 
appear to be ten years older than he really was. When 
the conscripters come around he would n't tell his age at 
all, but would show the Bible. He was a dark-skinned 
man getting gray, and the conscripters did n't suspicion 
that he was young enough to go into the army. 

My regiment was in Vicksburg during the siege. I'd 
got to be twenty-five years old. The week after the place 
surrendered, as near as I can remember we were payroled. 
The Yankees examined our knapsacks and everything to 
see that we did n't carry away what we ought not to, and 
they give us so many days' rations and let us go. We 
walked out easterly across the state about one hundred 
and fifty miles and then got a train, and I came home to 
Chattanooga. 

My brother-in-law had died of the smallpox, but I knew 
nothing of it till I reached home. He'd been dead a month 
then. They'd got the place cleaned up only a day or two 
before I come. The disease had run through the whole 
family, and when I met the children with their faces all 
scarred I did n't hardly know 'em. It made a pretty sad 
arrival for me. 
We had eighty acres of land, but not more than twenty 



266 Chickamauga 

acres was cle'red. Corn was our principal raising. The 
Rebels was here, and they'd taken the chickens and hogs 
and sich things as that. All my sister had left was a cow 
or two and a blind mar' and a filly. The soldiers had 
cleaned up pretty near everything else. 

Our home people suffered from the Yankees and Rebels 
alike. The truth is there was thieves and rascals and 
gentlemen, too, in both armies. I don't think one side 
was any worse or any better than the other. 

I just stayed at home and worked with the rest, and I 
was there when the Federals got to Chattanooga early 
in September. On the night before the Rebels left I went 
down in the town — it was n't much of a town then. We 
knew the Yankees were movin' in this direction. Of 
course, they had no right to interfere with me at all as 
long as I observed my pajrole, but if the Confederates 
was goin' to leave I wanted to go with 'em. General 
Cheatham promised faithfully to let me know when they 
got ready to start, and I returned and went to bed and 
slept peacefully. 

In the morning I got on my horse and rode down town 
again. As I approached the soldiers' camp everything was 
quiet and no one moving. In fact, they'd all gone, and 
they'd gone in a hurry, too. A good deal of stuff was 
lyin' around, hogskins was hangin' on the bushes, and 
there was a little curling of blue smoke from the camp- 
fires. 

I left the camp and was riding toward the village when 
I beared two or three guns fire from the north side of the 
river. There was no answering guns from this side — 
just silence. On the borders of the village I found twenty 
or more of our best citizens trying to fix up a flag of truce 



The Paroled Soldier 267 

to carry down to the river and surrender the town. 
Among 'em was Chattanooga's mayor and the sheriff of 
the county. When the white flag was ready they made me 
ride ahead and carry it. They said they'd all go with me, 
but they got weak-kneed and stopped to rest on the door- 
steps along. My following had dwindled to three by the 
time I reached the river. The Yankees was on the other 
bank. They was just gettin' into boats to come across. 
There was an upper ferry and a lower ferry, and each ferry 
had at least one large boat that could take a four-horse 
wagon, and a couple of smaller boats for lighter teams. 
The boats was all pulled with oars. The Yankees had se- 
cured enough of those boats so they could ferry across 
pretty peart. Besides, there was skiffs and canoes and 
dugouts. If a feller was n't mighty careful when he stepped 
into a dugout he hit the water. 

I did n't enjoy bein' where I was, and I soon left. I 
remembered that I had n't said farewell to a schoolmate 
of mine, a young lady whose name was Miss Sally Royson. 
So I handed the white flag to the mayor and lit out to see 
her. Miss Sally's father was a Union man. He'd been 
gone to Nashville several months, but I expected he was 
on the other side of the river now, and I wanted to tell 
her he was comin' and to have a good dinner ready for 
him. 

After the Yankees had been here a week or two they 
had a little skirmish with the enemy around the edge of 
Lookout Mountain. When it was over a Rebel who 'd been 
in that fight come to our house and wanted me to get word 
to his mother that he was all right. She lived not more 
than a mile from me, but the feller did n't want to go any 
farther for fear the Yankees would capture him. 



268 Chickamauora 



&' 



After dinner I started. I went afoot, and when I got 
there I found her and a nigger out in the yard watching 
some dust up the road. The nigger had a double-barrel 
shotgun in his hands. A troop of Union cavalry was com- 
in'. They stopped at the gate to ask what I was doin' 
there. You see I wore my Confederate uniform. I ex- 
plained and showed my payrole papers and they treated 
me very kind. 

While they was talkin' with me a horse ran out of the 
barn into the lot and the head officer told two of his men 
to go and get him. The officer and the rest of his com- 
mand started on, and the two men went into the lot to 
ketch the horse. At the same time the nigger jumped over 
the fence with his gun and said they should n't have that 
horse. So they galloped off across to the main road and 
joined their comrades and reported. In a few minutes a 
squad of 'em come back, and the nigger saw it wa'n't no 
use, and they took the horse. 

On the two days that the battle of Chickamauga was 
fought I set on Orchard Knob and listened at it. I took 
along my little niece. She was about three, I reckon. I 
kept her with me for protection so if the Yankees acci- 
dentally come across me they would n't think I was spyin'. 
I could hear the small arms, and I could look over Mis- 
sionary Ridge and see the smoke a-risin'. I remember 
what I had for breakfast the day the battle ended. I had 
corn bread and pickled pork, and for drink there was 
coffee that was made out of parched sweet potatoes. 

A week or two later I moved my folks farther south 
where I hoped we'd be less disturbed, but there wasn't 
much comfort to be had till the war ended. Everybody 
was glad then. I remember I met a nice young lieutenant 



The Paroled Soldier 269 

in Chattanooga right after the news reached us of Lee's 
surrender, and he was ready to throw his arms around me, 
or any other Rebel, he was so happy. He'd been cele- 
brating by drinking, and he said, "This is the first time 
I ever got drunk in my life." 



XXXIV 

The Girl on the Mountain ' 

My father was a carpenter here in Chattanooga, but a 
time came when he had to stop work on account of tu- 
berculosis. The physicians in town had given him up. 
However, he decided to move to the top of Lookout Moun- 
tain and try the rest and air cure. He rented a Httle log 
cabin up there. That was in 1851 when I was two years 
old. We carried our goods up an Indian trail on packmules. 
Mother took me up in her lap on horseback. Several fami- 
lies were already living on the mountain, and a road was 
built the next year. Then more families moved there, and 
Father put up a frame house. His health had improved, 
and he was now able to work as usual. 

The mountain rises to a height of about three thousand 
feet. It has a flat top, and our house was right on the 
plateau a mile from the point. We mountain dwellers 
had gardens and orchards and turnip patches, and we 
kept cows and pigs. Six miles farther back on the moun- 
tain were farms. Near our home was the Lookout Moun- 
tain Educational Institute. It had some seventy-five 
pupils boarding right at the school and a few day pupils, 
but most of the families at the point had governesses to 
teach their children books and music. 

1 She was a serene, white-haired woman in an attractive home of 
more than ordinary refinement. I was her guest one evening while she 
recalled for my benefit her childhood life in war days. 



The Girl on the Mountain 271 

Our first serious experience in warfare came in August 
'63 when a Northern detachment under Wilder bom- 
barded the town. It was on a Friday that had been set 
apart by the Confederate government for fasting and 
prayer. A Chattanooga woman who had a summer home 
on the mountain had brought me down to the meeting in 
her rockaway. The church was crowded and the minister 
was praying when the first shell came and exploded just 
outside. I looked around. I thought the gallery had fallen. 
A woman who sat in the seat in front of me slapped her 
husband on the back and exclaimed, "My God! Mr. 
Bruce, the Yankees are coming." 

The minister kept right on praying, but the people in 
the pews all jumped up and got out. There was almost a 
panic. A great many of them went off south without even 
going to their homes. The neighbor who had brought 
me sent her driver to her town house, and he got as much 
as he could carry in a sheet, and then we hurried back to 
the mountain. The bombardment damaged the town 
buildings more or less and a number of people were hit, 
including a little girl who was killed on the street. But 
the Yankees did n't cross the river. 

A great many Confederate soldiers were stationed on 
the mountain, and they had very little to eat. We owned 
five elegant cows, but the soldiers killed them and issued 
them out as rations. They got our pigs and chickens, 
too, and we did n't have anything left but a flock of 
guineas. The guineas could fly up in the trees, and they 
escaped. The country was scoured over by both armies, 
everything was demoralized, and food was n't to be bought 
for love or money. We just lived from hand to mouth. 

Salt was one of the scarcest commodities. That's one 



272 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

thing we could n't get along without. People even dug up 
the ground in their smokehouses to get it. You see meat 
that had been pickled in brine had been hung in there 
year after year, and the drippings had fallen to the dirt 
below. By putting the earth in a hopper and letting water 
run through it the salt would be carried along. Then, when 
the water was boiled down, the salt would crystallize. Of 
course it was unrefined, but it was better than none 
at all. 

My father was a Union man, and he had to stay pretty 
close. Once he was ordered to report to the headquarters 
of General Bragg who was the chief commander of the 
Confederates in this vicinity. He had been betrayed by a 
neighbor woman. She had a grudge against him because 
he had refused to let our wagon go to town to haul sup- 
plies for her. A Confederate officer was sick at our house. 
We nursed a good many sick soldiers of both armies and 
so made friends. Mother was ten^ibly distressed about 
Father's summons, and she told that sick officer of our 
trouble. So the officer wrote a letter and sent it by an 
orderly to General Bragg, and Father was let off. 

When the battle of Chickamauga was fought it was a 
very dry time. The springs were all dried up and the dust 
was ankle deep. Many of the soldiers who marched past 
our house carried their shoes their feet hurt so. We could 
see the battleground about a dozen miles off to the south 
and trace the movements of the armies by the dust and 
smoke. We could hear the cannonading, too. It was ter- 
rible and made us feel as if nobody could live through 
it. 

After the battle the Union army was cooped up here in 
Chattanooga with only one rough mountain road over 



The Girl on the Mountain 273 

which to draw supplies from Bridgeport, sixty miles dis- 
tant. Sometimes raiders captured the wagon trains and 
the teams would n't get to bring anything through. When 
the soldiers had flour they 'd take it to some townswoman, 
and she 'd make light bread for them and get a part of the 
flour in pay. She took toll like a miller. A relative of ours 
gave some of the soldiers two sacks of shelled corn at a 
time when they were suffering for food. They filled the 
little pint cups they drank their coffee out of, and they 
parched the corn and ate it and were glad to get it. 

Ten thousand horses and mules died here within a 
month for want of food. Their bodies lay all along the 
road. I counted as many as thirteen in one pile. They 
made the air in the valley just stifling. It was all the 
soldiers could do to bury the men who died, and they 
did n't bother with the horses and mules. 

There was always lots of sickness in the army. Some- 
times there 'd be an epidemic of measles. That's a serious 
disease for grown persons. A man would get delirious and 
wander out of the tent or house where he was, and he'd 
be out over night and catch cold and die. There was small- 
pox galore toward the end of the war. Lots of soldiers, 
too, died from scurvy. Scurvy was caused by eating too 
much salt meat, and men sick with it were just crazy to 
get onions or any kind of vegetables. That was the kind 
of food they needed if they were going to recover. The 
diseases that ravaged the armies spread to the homes. The 
colored troops were a special menace in carrying the in- 
fection, so many of them were gadding about the coun- 
try and getting into families. 

While the Union troops were besieged here there was 
great lack of firewood in the place. Cameron Hill, which 



274 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

was covered with beautiful trees was soon swept bare, and 
the soldiers even dug up the stumps to burn in their fires. 
No barns or outbuildings were left anywhere. 

Grant arrived late in October, and a wagon road was 
established to a point down the river where supplies could 
be brought by boat. Then Sherman came with reinforce- 
ments, and on November 24th Fighting Joe Hooker 
assailed Lookout Mountain which was held by the Con- 
federates. We sometimes have a fog here in a gloomy 
rainy spell so dense that you can't see anybody fifty yards 
away. It was raining that morning, and one of those thick 
fogs was hanging about the mountain sides. The Confed- 
erates could n't see the movements of the Union troops 
and were not aware of their approach until they had 
reached the base of the mountain. The plateau at the 
summit is bounded by a palisade or precipice of rocks 
with stony, wooded slopes below. Some of the Federals 
fought their way up to the palisade on the north side of 
the mountain. 

The Confederates had fortified themselves on the pla- 
teau, but they were expecting to be attacked from the 
other direction. However, they readjusted themselves, 
and they formed a line of battle extending from the sum- 
mit to the valley. In the fighting that followed they were 
gradually pushed back along the mountain side and 
around its eastern end. The contending troops under the 
point at the foot of the palisades were above the clouds, 
and they were all invisible from the valley. They fought 
until after dark. The firing sounded like the popping of 
popcorn in a skillet. 

A good many people took their bedding and things and 
went down under the cliffs on the other side of the moun- 







THE SHARPSHOOTER AFTER THE BATTLE 



The Girl on the Mountain 275 

tain and stayed all night. Our family did n't run. We 
were up till late, and then there was a lull in the battle 
and we went to sleep as usual. 

Some of the signal corps had been stopping at our house. 
The mountain was an excellent place to signal from, and 
on many a night we had watched the waving of answering 
signal torches on distant high points. The signal corps 
men had to leave in a hurry, and they told us a retreat had 
been ordered and that the commissary stores, which were 
in a vacant house near by, would have to be left behind. 
They wanted us to have some of those stores. 

Mother and I and Father hurried to the vacant house 
and brought away what we could carry in our arms and 
hid the things in the attic. We had hardly done that when 
some Union troops came and searched the house. They 
looked up in the attic, but they did n't find our commis- 
sary stores. 

We went out and walked about later in the day, and I 
remember seeing a dead sharpshooter. He had established 
himself in a crevice of a mountain cliff, and from there had 
been picking off the Union troops. But finally they saw 
and shot him, and he fell all in a heap down in the crev- 
ice. His body was there for several days. 

Missionary Ridge rises south of the town to the height 
of a few hundred feet, and on its crest were posted fifteen 
thousand Confederates with cannon. The very day that 
Hooker completed his conquest of Lookout Mountain the 
Union troops successfully stormed Missionary Ridge. The 
assault was made at three o'clock in the afternoon, and 
we could see the men as they charged up the slope with 
the sun shining on their accouterments. It was a wonder- 
ful sight. The battle was short and decisive. The Con- 



276 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

federates fled in wild disorder, and the guns that they 
abandoned were turned against them. 

There was great loss of life, a host of wounded, and 
numerous prisoners. The fighting forces were still further 
reduced by desertions. Back on the mountain a score of 
miles was a wild, isolated region that was full of deserters 
from both armies. The poor country folks out there lost 
all they had. Yes, the army played havoc in one way or 
another with every section it was in. 



XXXV 

The Cabinet-Maker's Daughter ' 

When Maw and Paw came here to Chattanooga the place 
was just a steamboat landing on the Tennessee River. 
Now the city has expanded southward from the nver till 
its borders touch Missionary Ridge, but at the time of the 
war Missionary Ridge was way out in the woods. It was 
certainly in the wilderness. The number of inhabitants 
in the straggling village could n't have been over fifteen 
hundred. There was a foundry here, a distillery, and a 
couple of gristmills. 

Paw was a cabinet-maker and had a two-room shop. 
At first he did his work in one of the rooms, and he and 
Maw lived in the other room. Later they had a house 
about a mile from the shop, and Paw rode from there to 
his business on horseback each morning. He kept on with 
his cabinet-making all through the war. Maw and the 
children were left alone out at the house during the day- 
time and when the war unsettled things Maw got a pistol 
and put up a mark and learned to shoot. We had a colored 
man that Paw had bought, and one day he told Maw he'd 
just seen thirty-two army wagons drive into our cornfield. 
"Well," she said, "you go and put a saddle on a horse 
for me, and I'll ride over there." 

1 She had been only a child when the rival armies contended in the 
vicinity, and so was not yet old. Indeed, as I talked with her in her city 
home, she still had the energy and vivacity that belong to youth. ., 



278 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

"You can't drive those men out," he said. "They'll 
give you impudence." 

But she had him saddle her horse and get on his own 
horse and go along with her. Niggers was reliable during 
slave-time — not like they are now. They got to the 
cornfield and found that several lengths of the rail fence 
had been taken down, and the wagons had driven right 
into the corn. 

"Now, look hyar, you-all men," Maw said, "the last 
one of you turn your teams around and go out of that lot 
and put the fence up behind you." 

They commenced to say something. 

"No use to talk," she said, and showed her pistol. "If 
you don't go I'll blow your brains out." 

"Well lady," they said, "we're not doing a thing except 
to get corn to feed our horses." 

"And I'm trying to save it to make bread for my six 
children," she told 'em. 

They came out of there and put up the fence, and we 
heard that when they got back to their tents they said to 
the other teamsters: "You better be careful how you go 
over onto that place. The woman there knows how to 
shoot." 

Maw certainly was spunky. Paw often had to tell her 
not to talk so much or we'd all be sent North. But, you 
know, during the war, a woman could say a heap more 
things than a man. 

When the Yankees bombarded the town Paw took a 
child under each arm and Maw did the same and carried 
the four children down the steps into the cellar. Then they 
came back and got the other two, and every moment they 
were expecting to be knocked over by a shell. Late in the 



The Cabinet-Maker's Daughter 279 

day, the shells stopped flying, and Paw went out and 
milked the cows and tended to everything. We spent the 
night down in the cellar. 

A few weeks later the Yankees took possession of the 
town. We had a good-sized house, and they quartered 
six or seven officers with us for a while. It was a trying 
time. They'dsay things and Maw would talk back. Paw 
would look at her and shake his head, and sometimes 
she'd stop and sometimes she would n't. Occasionally 
their talk was almost too much even for Paw. One morn- 
ing, at breakfast, the officers were sitting there talking, 
and the nigger subject came up. "I think a nigger is as 
good as a white man," an officer said. 

Afterward Paw told Maw: "If you hadn't looked at 
me I'd 'a' laid that officer out. It was the bitterest pill I 
ever had to swallow, and I had to swallow it at my own 
table. But I give you fair warning I'm not going to do 
such a thing any more." 

The officers left us presently, and we arranged to have 
a guard stationed at our house to protect us. We'd have 
been imposed on in all sorts of ways if it had n't been for 
him. Paw's mother lived on the other side of the town. 
She was an old lady. I expect she was about seventy-two. 
But the Union officers did n't think anything of going there 
and putting her and her daughter out and putting some 
contraband negroes in. She'd send word to us, and our 
guard would go up there and tell the negroes to get out, 
and he'd put the old lady and her daughter back. 

The Yankees would have got some negroes into our house 
if they could. An officer came one day and walked in and 
looked through the house and said he wanted a room for 
two colored women. 



280 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

"I have no place in my house for niggers," Maw told 
him. "You can't get 'em in here"; and the officer went 
away. 

The soldiers were camped all around, and if they saw 
anything in the yard that they wanted they came in and 
took it — they never asked for it. We had a Newfound- 
land dog, and he would bark at 'em. One time a soldier 
came into the yard to carry off something, and the dog 
rushed toward him barking. The fellow raised an ax to 
strike the dog, and Maw ran out and said, "That dog 
won't bite you." 

"If he does bite me, I'll split his head open," the man 
said. 

Such things as that used Maw up, and once she was 
sitting on the steps crying over the war and our losses. 
A little piece of ragged carpet was lying in the yard, and 
a soldier picked it up. "Lady," he said, "may I have 
this?" 

"Well," she replied, "you've taken everything else 
without asking, and I suppose you can take that, too." 

Just then an officer came around the corner of the 
house. "Put that down," he said. 

"What authority have you got to give me orders?" the 
soldier asked. 

The officer pulled out his sword and flourished it around. 
"Here's my authority," he said. 

"I guess I was right mean," Mother told us afterward, 
"but I never was so anxious in my life to see a man's legs 
whacked off." 

Oh! the war was just a regular tear-up here in Chatta- 
nooga. 



XXXVI 
A Tennessee Boy ^ 

Father had settled on the other side of Missionary Ridge, 
four miles from town. He died in 1858 when I was a child. 

The people in this region were pretty well divided on 
the slavery question. Often opposite sides were taken in 
the same family, and there was much feeling. At least 
fifty per cent of the people were for the Union. A com- 
pany of Confederate soldiers was stationed at Chatta- 
nooga, and those soldiers went around to the houses in the 
adjacent country and arrested every one they suspected 
of sympathizing with the North. They brought their pris- 
oners to town and put them under guard. 

One day they were out our way. They'd been to a 
number of different houses, and at each house had arrested 
the head of the family and his grown sons and marched 
them off. Among those taken into custody were several 
of the tenants on our farm. Soldiers and prisoners were 
all on foot, and they were followed by the prisoners' wives 
and children. The road was full when they got to Moth- 
er's. They were on the big road heading to town. At our 
place the soldiers made the women and children turn back. 
There was crying and wringing of hands, and the parting 
was very touching. 

1 He was now a stout-figured, deliberate business man. I spent a 
morning hour with him in his handsome office in one of Chattanooga's 
big public buildings. As he talked he puffed meditatively at his pipe 
and sat with his feet on his broad-topped desk. 



282 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

The arrested men were kept in town several days. Then 
an influential citizen got them all released, and they re- 
turned to their homes, but not to stay. Within a short 
time they all left for the North, and many of 'em joined 
the Union army and fought their way back to the region 
of their birth. 

It would n't have been safe for 'em to stay here. A mile 
and a half from where I was raised lived a very intelligent 
Union man named Lominick. He had education and abil- 
ity, and he had courage. If let alone he was inoffensive, 
but the fact that he was an outspoken opponent of slavery 
made him enemies who would n't stop at any crime. One 
Saturday night some of 'em went to his place. It seems 
he must have been expecting trouble, for he was sleeping 
in the barn. They got in there and took him out and hung 
him to a little post oak tree on his own farm. 

The next day we had gathered at church for preaching 
when we got word of what had happened, and we all im- 
mediately went to Mr. Lominick's place. Some man com- 
ing along the road that morning had seen the body and 
had told Mrs. Lominick. She went and cut her husband 
down, and when we got there she was sitting under the 
oak tree with his head in her lap. 

The body was put into a wagon and hauled to the house. 
We all followed and went in, and the house was full. A 
very large number of people attended the funeral on Mon- 
day, and the dead man was buried in his home yard next 
to his baby girl. A good many old-timers used to be buried 
in their yards. 

The community was very indignant over this lynching. 
Two men who lived a few miles away were suspected of 
being the murderers, but they did n't await any investi- 



A Tennessee Boy 283 

gating. They immediately joined the Confederate army. 
A fellow could do anything and escape punishment by 
joining the army. 

After the war one of the men returned to his home, and 
he had n't been there long when he was dragged out of his 
house one night and beaten and left for dead. But he 
revived and got out of the country. People had no doubt 
that his assailants were Mr. Lominick's sons avenging the 
death of their father. Nothing was done to punish them. 
One of 'em is living out on the old place yet. 

The war came en here in earnest in 1863, and for a while 
some seventy-five thousand Confederate troops were sta- 
tioned between the town and Missionary Ridge. Mother 
had only myself and my sister with her. So she applied 
for protection, and a house guard was sent to us. The offi- 
cers in both armies seemed to take pains to select men of 
good character for that duty. Our guard did his work 
efficiently until he was ordered back to camp, when the 
Confederates were leaving at the approach of the Federal 
army. 

The battle of Chickamauga was fought only about six 
miles from our home. It was so clost that we could hear 
the roaring of the cannon very distinctly. While the bat- 
tle was going on Colonel Minty with a regiment of North- 
ern cavalry came to our farm and they fed their horses in 
a ten-acre cornfield of ours. They cleaned it out. The 
field was n't in sight from the house, but Mother learned 
of what they'd been doing, and she took me and my sis- 
ter and went right down there. She found the colonel near 
by in an old log church, and he paid for the com by giving 
her a voucher for ninety dollars. It was not till seven 
months later though that she got the money. 



284 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

My mother had been a school teacher in her younger 
days, and was more cultured and capable than the aver- 
age of women. She was strongly religious and thought it 
was a sin to own slaves. Her friends advised her to at 
least buy two or three to help on the farm, but she would 
not. She and Colonel Minty had quite a conversation in 
the old log church, and among other things she told him 
how sure she was of the righteousness of the Union cause, 
and that the Lord was with the Federal army. 

"Well," he said, "that certainly explains why so many 
deserters are comin' to our camp. But don't you think 
you'd better be going home?" he asked. "I expect some 
of our soldiers are pilfering your house now." 

Sure enough, when we got there several soldiers had 
broken into our smokehouse. They heard us coming and 
skinned out — ran like good fellows. 

The battle was over the next day. The Yankees got 
back to Chattanooga, and the Rebels followed them as 
far as Missionary Ridge. The men and teams of the whole 
Confederate army passed our place. They were going all 
that day and all night and the better portion of the day 
after. 

The troops were camped close by until late in Novem- 
ber. One of the colonels had a tent in our yard. We had 
an old-fashioned three-room house with a big chimney at 
one end, and there was a log kitchen sitting a little apart 
from it. My mother was a very energetic woman, and 
she entertained to some extent ladies from farther south 
who came to see their husbands and sons, and she baked 
a great deal to sell to the army. I was only ten years old, 
but most every day I 'd take to camp a basket filled with 
pies, cakes, corn bread, and light bread. Mother had the 



A Tennessee Boy 285 

reputation of making the finest corn bread in the country. 
The soldiers were so anxious to get it they'd flock right 
around me as soon as I arrived. 

Sometimes I did my peddling on horseback. Once, 
when I had ridden my little sorrel mare to camp, I sold 
my load and went to a spring to water her and get a drink 
myself. A bunch of soldiers was there who belonged to 
the Texas Rangers, One of 'em helped me off and on the 
horse. When he lifted me back he tickled me. I reached 
home and put my hand in my pocket to deliver the money 
I'd received to my mother, and my little red pocket- 
book was gone. 

The peculiar part of the matter is that some twenty- 
five years later I was on a train with a number of gentle- 
men in the smoking car, and I related this incident. When 
I got through one of 'em said: "I was very much inter- 
ested in your story. I belonged to the regiment of Ran- 
gers which was camped near that spring, and I remember 
very well that the fellow who tickled you showed us your 
pocketbook afterward. That very night I and some others, 
including him and our colonel, were gambling. He had a 
falling-out with the colonel and killed him. Then he made 
his escape and joined the Federal army." 

All the time that the Confederates were camped in our 
neighborhood there was more or less bombarding, and 
after dark I often sat in the yard and watched the bombs 
go over the house. They were like comets, with a long tail 
of light trailing after 'em. 

On the day of the battle of Missionary Ridge myself 
and a colored man started early for camp, each with a 
basket of provisions. It was n't an unusual thing for the 
Federals and Confederates to be shooting at each other, 



286 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

but we noticed there was more shooting than usual that 
morning. When we got up on the top of the ridge the col- 
ored man said tome: "Buddy, you'd better go back home. 
They're fightin'. I'll take your basket." 

He went along with the baskets, and I've never seen 
the nigger from that day to this. I waited a while, and 
the bullets began to fly so thick I lay down behind a stump. 
There I stayed all day. I did n't have anything to eat, and 
I did n't want anything. I had too much else to think of. 
Men were shot all around me, and the wounded lay on the 
ground groaning to beat the batid. I thought if the Yan- 
kees knew that a little boy like me was there they'd stop 
the fight till I got home. The bullets were cutting off 
twigs and bushes in the woods roundabout, and I got my- 
self in as small a ball as I could behind the stump. 

It's curious the different ways men conduct themselves 
in battle. If a bombshell fell near them some would laugh 
and smack their hands. Others would look serious as if 
they felt the awfulness of the situation. Some would 
swear. They'd cuss the Yankees at the top of their voice. 
Others would sing a jolly song. When a shell burst in the 
ranks the yelling was almost deafening. 

Near my stump was a very large cannon. The Confed- 
erates presently started to retreat, and orders were given 
to haul the cannon away. A driver with some big, fine- 
looking bay horses was hitching onto it when a bullet 
killed one of the horses. That excited the others and they 
pranced around so that he had difficulty in getting them 
straightened out. Before he could hitch them to the can- 
non a second horse was killed. He kept losing 'em that way 
till only one was left; and he got on it to ride off. Just then 
a wounded man called to him for help. 



A Tennessee Boy 287 

**Pardner/' the driver said, "if I can lift you up on this 
horse I believe I can get away with you." 

He dismounted, and in a few moments had contrived 
to get the wounded man on the horse's back. Then he 
jumped up himself and away they went down the ridge 
as fast as the horse could gallop. 

About that time a couple of gentlemen spoke to me. 
They were hangers-on of the army — clerks or something 
— and they were the first persons who'd noticed me that 
day. 

"What are you doing here?" they asked. 

I don't know what my reply was, but it throwed 'em 
into convulsions of laughter. 

"You'd better light out," they advised, "or the Yan- 
kees '11 be here and get you. Where do you live?" 

"Just down the hill to the east," I answered. 

"Come along then," they said. "We're going that 
way." 

I went with them a little piece, but they were n't going 
fast enough, and I left 'em and dodged along ahead. Be- 
fore I got home I met my mother and she embraced me 
with tears of joy. She 'd got so alarmed about my long ab- 
sence that she did n't know what to do, and she'd left my 
little sister alone in the house and was comin' to look for 
me. 

That experience of mine has proved valuable to me in 
one way since. When my children were small and would- 
n't sleep at night I'd tell them the story of how I stayed 
behind a stump on Missionary Ridge while the battle was 
being fought there, and it never failed to quiet them. 

After Mother and I reached home I heard the small 
balls striking the house and the boards of the fence around 



288 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

the yard. The army had taken all our cows but one some 
time before. That one was in a cleared field a short dis- 
tance from the house. We became anxious about her, and 
I slipped out the back door and went after her. I had got 
the old cow turned around and started toward the house 
when I heard a shell coming right in my direction. It made 
a noise somewhat similar to that made by the wings of a 
covey of birds. I 'd been taught by the soldiers that I must 
lie flat on my breast to avoid being hit by a shell, and down 
I lay. The shell burst, and pieces of it went over me and 
the cow without hitting us. Then we went on, and I put 
her in the smokehouse and locked her up. 

The Confederates had left, and now we had the Yan- 
kees around us. Some of 'em broke into the smokehouse 
that night. They evidently tried to split the cow's head 
with an ax, but she got away, and we found her in the 
morning with a great gash in her shoulder. We sewed up 
the wound and put her back in the smokehouse. But the 
soldiers stole her after night came, and when we looked 
around the next day we came across her hide a quarter of 
a mile away. 

As soon as the winter was past we went to work to re- 
place the fences that had been destroyed and get our fields 
ready to plant. It was a good crop year, and we received 
first-rate prices for all we raised. The next year the war 
ended, and we were able to buy army horses for thirty or 
forty dollars apiece and so got our farm running in good 
shape again. 



XXXVII 

The Mulatto Girl 1 

I LIVED with my Uncle Amos in a four-room frame house 
in what is now the business part of the city. Chattanooga 
was a small place then with just a house hyar and thar. 
Not more'n three or four of the houses was of brick, and a 
good many were little log cabins with whitewashed walls. 
Right in the middle of the town was a big frog pond. Well, 
the place was n't nothing but a mudhole. Oh, but I 've 
spent many happy days thar! 

I was just a stripling of a girl when the Yankees bum- 
barded the town from across the river. They throwed in 
bumbshells, log chains, and everything. We could see the 
chains twisting through the air like snakes, A piece of a 
bumb struck a white woman right above our house just 
after dark that evening and killed her. 

Uncle Amos spoke to my aunt and said, "I expect you'll 
have to go to the bluff to-night." 

The bluff was right in town on the edge of the river, 
and the women and children, black and white, all went 
thar together and got under the rocks. A lot of 'em car- 
ried bedclothes, but no one did much sleeping. We had 
fires all along in front and kept them burning till morning. 

1 I called at her home, a humble wooden house on the outskirts of 
the city, and was invited into the dingy, odorous living-room. My 
informant was a tall, elderly woman with dark, straight hair, and a 
mottled, yellow complexion. She had some snuff in her mouth and 
frequently paused in her narrative to spit into the little fireplace grate. 



290 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

Uncle had a farm out across Missionary Ridge. Thar 
was thirty or forty acres in it. During the summer he 
lived in a little log hut at the farm and cropped the land. 
We was thar in the early fall of 1863. One day, when we 
was about ready to start gathering the corn, the old folks 
took the wagon and the two horses and went into town to 
get provisions. I and my two sisters stayed at the log hut. 

That morning four or five Rebels come running through 
the yard and smashed their guns against the trees and 
stumps and left 'em thar. I found out afterward that the 
Rebel army was retreatin' from Chattanooga. Later the 
same day the Yankees got to our farm, and the first thing 
I knew their wagons was out in front, and the men tore 
down the fence and drove in our cornfield. They began to 
break off the ears and throw 'em into the wagons. Oh, 
they like to have scared me to death! The road was full of 
soldiers. They were all dressed in blue and were covered 
with dust, and they had canteens and guns and bayonets 
— they did look scarey. Some of 'em come to the door 
and said, "Where's your father?" 

I felt like I was havin' a chill. My tongue cleaved to 
the roof of my mouth. They were swearing at me and had 
me most dead when a captain rode up to the gate. "What 
are you-all doing hyar scaring children?" he said, and he 
drove 'em right out of the yard and told 'em to go about 
their business. 

" How come these guns hyar lyin' around on the ground? " 
he asked. 

"The Rebels left 'em," I said. 

"Whar are the Rebels?" he wanted to know. 

"They're gone across the mountain," I told him. 

He asked some more questions and found out that our 



The Mulatto Girl 291 

old folks were in Chattanooga, and he said, "We've put 
out our picket lines, and your people can't come back 
through 'em. It won't be safe for you to stay hyar. I'll 
take you to town." 

So we just left everything standing as it was, and he 
carried my little baby sister on the horse in front of him. 
My oth^ sister was larger, and she took hold of my hand 
and we walked right by the captain's stirrup, and the 
wagons loaded with corn was driving along behind. He 
went with us to my uncle's, and delivered us to the old 
folks. "Hyar's your children," he said, and they thanked 
him and thanked him. 

Not long afterward the battle of Chickamauga was 
fought. We could hear the firing, and the second day of 
the fight it was boom, boom, boom, boom from morning 
till night. The weather was hot, and most of the springs 
was dried up. Thar was a pond on the battlefield, and so 
many were shot near it that their blood ran down in the 
pond; and the soldiers just drank that bloody water be- 
cause they couldn't get any other. It's called "Bloody 
Pond" now. 

The ambulances were coming all the time bringing the 
wounded, some with their arms broken, some with their 
legs shot off. Officers and soldiers was just piled in on top 
of each other. Some of 'em were moaning, and some were 
hollering, "Lord, have mercy!" All the churches was full 
of the wounded, and a good many of the houses. 

One wounded man come to our house. A bullet had 
gone in one cheek and .out the other and it shot some of 
his teeth out, too. His tongue was n't hit, but he could 
n't talk very well — only just mumble a little bit. He told 
us he was starved to death almost, and I made some mush 



292 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

right quick. My little sister cried because she was sorry 
for him. He had to hold a handkercher on each side of his 
face so the food would n't run out when he swallowed. 

Several months before they had the fighting hyar Uncle 
Amos brought a Yankee spy to our house. We children 
stood and looked at him and at his blue uniform while he 
eat supper. He seemed to be anxious about his safety, and 
by and by he pointed to me and said: "Who's that little 
girl? I'm afraid of her, she watches me so tight." 

After he finished his supper my uncle took him out and 
put him in the corncrib and covered him up in the shucks. 
Uncle got him a gray suit, and the spy put it on and he 
went off at three o'clock in the morning to ketch a train. 
He was a very small man with hair as black as jet. While 
the fighting was going on at Chickamauga a man came 
from the battlefield and leaned up against our fence. It 
was that spy. He did n't have any gun, and he was dusty 
and wore out and all broke down. He asked for water, and 
when I brought it to him I says, "You're the one who was 
hyar that night," and he said he was. He stayed thar 
leaning against the fence for an hour or two. 

During the next two months the Union troops was 
bottled up in Chattanooga, and food got scarce. Aunt 
would cook things and swap 'em to the Yankees for coffee. 
We did n't have no meal or corn, but we had rice, and 
we sent it to a little mill up the river and had it ground. 
The rice flour made very good batter cakes, and some- 
times we baked it into bread, but I did n't care for rice 
bread. Now and then we would get hardtacks from the 
soldiers. We liked those hardtacks. I had good teeth and 
I could eat 'em, and they were nice if you put 'em in 
coffee or milk. 




A FIUEXDLV OFFICER 



The Mulatto Girl 293 

We owned two big mooly cows, so we had milk and 
butter. There was a shed we kept 'em in at night, and we 
had fenced an acre lot that we turned 'em out into every 
morning. General Stedman had a quart of milk a day 
from us, and we supplied him with fresh butter when we 
churned. One night the soldiers tore down our cow-lot 
fence. They wanted it for their fires. At the same time 
they broke into the shed and milked the cows. The gen- 
eral did n't get any milk the next morning, and we told 
him why. Then he made the soldiers take an army wagon 
and haul lumber from a sawmill over on the river and put 
up a new fence and a fine large gate. It was a better fence 
than we had before. 

Another night the soldiers tore our dairy down. We 
could hear 'em, but you know we did n't dare go out. 
There were some jars of peach preserves in the dairy, and 
the soldiers eat up the preserves and rolled the earthen 
jars down to the gate. They pulled up everything in our 
garden and took all our ducks and geese. 

As it happened, we had plenty of meat, but the meat 
wasn't in our smokehouse. We'd rented that to some 
poor colored contrabands. They had a stove in there and 
a bed. I don't think they had any table. It was one little 
room, and there wasn't no windowin it — just a front door. 

Our meat was buried under the house. The old woman 
had prepared for war in time of peace. We had taken up 
some boards of the kitchen floor, dug down in the earth, 
and put in the meat. Then we'd covered it with dirt, and 
we poured ashes out of the fireplace around on the ground 
so if any one looked down there they would n't see the 
fresh dirt. That meat was n't stolen from us, and it never 
molded either. 



294 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

One day my aunt had me under the floor scratching 
for a ham when General Stedman come to the house. He 
pushed the door open and walked right in. "What have 
you got down there?" he said. 

"Meat," my aunt replied. "I buried it to feed my chil- 
dren." 

"Well," he said, "that is a nice Yankee trick in you. 
Let me have a ham, and you send your wagon up to my 
headquarters. You need n't be afraid of your children 
starving." 

We sent the wagon, and he gave us pickled beef and 
pork, cheese, crackers, sugar, and beans. 

I remember once a soldier come to the door and rapped, 
and Aunt just opened the door a crack and asked, "What 
do you want?" 

It made him mad to have her so cautious, and he cussed 
her and kicked her right under the chin. He kicked her 
flat, and she screamed like everything. It was mean of 
him, but I went into the kitchen and laughed, she fell so 
flat. General Stedman was near by, and he heard the 
screams, and come hisself. He told some soldiers to ketch 
the feller, and they carried him to camp and tied him up 
by his thumbs. 

One time the soldiers got some skulls out on the battle- 
ground, and they come to our house in the night with 
those skulls and set three or four of 'em on sticks and 
leaned 'em against our door. Early in the morning I 
opened the door and the skulls fell into the house. I hol- 
lered and run, and Uncle Amos throwed the skulls outside. 
That tickled the soldiers. We could hear 'em laughing up 
in the camp. They did n't care for anything. 

About eight o'clock one morning the Rebels at the foot 



The Mulatto Girl 295 

of Lookout Mountain commenced shooting. The Union 
army was attacking 'em. It was a cold, drizzly day, and 
misty clouds hid the mountain. We could hear the guns, 
but we could n't see the soldiers. The shooting sounded 
like so many barrels of firecrackers, with once in a while 
the boom of a cannon. When night come the clouds rolled 
away, and we could see the campfires of both armies in 
two long lines that went from the valley to the mountain 
top, and between the campfire lines the men were still 
fighting. We stood in our yard and looked at the lights 
from the guns — the blinking lights. They were pretty 
to see. 

In the morning the Rebels had gone, and the Yankee 
soldiers had dumb that high mountain. We saw what 
seemed to be a bolt of white cloth stretched right along 
the mountain top. "Oh, there's the flag of truce!" we 
cried. 

If you'd been hyar you'd have heard lots of old shout- 
ing in the town when the people knew that the soldiers 
had got through fighting on the mountain. 

The battle was fought late in November, and the win- 
ter that followed was very cold. The horses could n't 
stand the weather, and they died in the corrals faster than 
the men could haul 'em out. The soldiers suffered from 
the cold, too. We were cooking breakfast one morning 
when we heard a noise outside like some one was trying 
to lift the doorlatch. Uncle Amos opened the door, and a 
soldier carrying a gun fell in on his face. He was nearly 
dead of cold. The tears were frozen on his cheeks, his 
beard was nothing but icicles, and his eyes looked like 
they were set in death. 

Uncle told me to get some cold water. I went to the 



296 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

well and drawed out bucketful after bucketful as fast as I 
could. They dashed the water over him till it looked like 
enough had been poured on to drown him. They rubbed 
him, too, and he got so after a while he could move. Then 
they carried him back to camp. The men at the camp 
thought he would die, but he got well and come to our 
house afterward. 

He told us how it happened that he nearly froze. It was 
because he was out all night on the picket line. He was 
passed by when the time come to change pickets. So he 
was on duty twice as long as he ought to have been. 

Well, that is the way things went in that old war. Some- 
times I go out over the Ridge to whar we had our farm and 
visit the folks who remember what happened while the 
soldiers were around hyar. But most of those who were 
living then have passed away, and those of 'em who are 
left are few and far between. 



XXXVIII 

The Invalid's Wife ' 

I don't know who you are or where you're from, but I'm 
goin' to tell you the truth. I'm livin' hyar at the foot of 
Lookout Mountain where I've always lived. The Indians 
was still hyar when my father come. Him and another 
man bought all this land up for a dollar an acre. You see 
land wan't worth nothin' in them days. 

At the time of the war there were just a few scattered 
houses hyar where now it is all built up thick like a city. 
The house I lived in had three rooms, and there was a 
kitchen outside. I owned some slaves, and they had little 
plank houses to themselves. We called the black people 
niggers and do yet, but Northern people associates with 
'em as if they liked 'em better than white. 

My husband had been sick for a long time when the 
Yankees come hyar. He'd been down the last year so he 
could n't do nothin', and he was just barely able to walk 
across the room. He had the kidney disease and the 
stomach disease. We'd spent a great deal of money goin' 
to doctors and tryin' to cure his bad health, but they did 
n't help him none. I put no confidence in doctors any 

1 She lived in a shabby, little, unpainted house, the interior of which, 
in its grimy, unkempt disorder was appalling. We sat in a combined 
living-room and bedroom. She was a sallow, grim old woman, and her 
gray hair, which she had evidently started to comb, hung about her 
shoulders. A feeble coal fire burned in the grate. The woman sat close 
to it, for the day was chilly, and sometimes poked it into brighter 
burning. 



298 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

more. All they want is money. If you are sick, just doctor 
yourself. 

The first big battle near hyar was Chickamauga, and 
it just like to have killed everything. The Yankees had 
gone out there from Chattanooga, and they retreated to 
the town when they were beaten. If the Confederates had 
kept up the pursuit four minutes longer they'd have 
drove the Yankees into the river. I wish they had and 
drowned every one of 'em. 

The Confederates had the top of Lookout Mountain 
and the sides way down to the base of it where I lived. 
One morning the Yankees made a bridge across Lookout 
Creek in a valley north of the mountain and got over 
hyar while the Rebels was all asleep on post up on the side 
of the mountain. The fighting begun without any of us 
having any warning. I know my sister was a-milking, 
and she throwed the pails down and run in the house. 

I had three children. My oldest was a boy maybe ten 
years old, and there was a little girl, and there was a baby 
that had been bom just four days. Old Mrs. Kilgore 
come to my house to help me git out. The shot was fall- 
ing like hail, and we had to go to git shet of it. Mrs. Kil- 
gore wrapped the baby up in a shawl and gave her to the 
boy to carry. He was skeered to death. He did n't have no 
sense, and as soon as he got out of the house he run. None 
of us knew where he went, and we did n't find him till 
evening. We never expected to see the baby any more nor 
him either. He run over a mile to one of our neighbors, 
and when he got there they found he was carryin' the 
baby head down with her feet up in his arms. I reckon 
God had determined that child should live. I don't know 
what else saved her. 



The Invalid's Wife 299 

Well, all of us at our house had to run out of the battle, 
and I like to have lost my life by it. My husband was 
layin' at the point of death, but he was n't so skeered as 
I was. He could n't walk to do no good, and Mrs. Kilgore 
put him on a horse. She helped me git on my own riding 
mar', which was very gentle and walked slow. We went 
to the house of a family named Richardson and got out of 
the fightin' for a while. But pretty soon the soldiers was 
at it right around us again. The Yankees had run the 
Rebels back and was a-hurryin' 'em along the mountain 
side. 

Mrs. Kilgore had me lie down on a feather bed, and she 
put two more feather beds on top of me to keep the bul- 
lets from shootin' me. That was all she had to stop the 
flyin' bullets. It was right funny, and I laughed about it, 
and I was skeered to death, too, for I thought I'd be shot 
every minute. Some of the bullets did come through the 
feather beds, so Mrs. Kilgore said. 

Well, she fixed me up, and then she tied a tablecloth to 
a stick like a flag and ran out and held it up. That was for 
peace. Some officers come galloping up to ask what was 
the matter. She told 'em there was a sick woman in the 
house, and they never shot toward it any more. They 
did n't bother nothing around the place after that, and 
the old woman had a chance to make me some strong 
coffee. I never shall forgit that day while I live. 

About the time my coffee was ready the Rebel doctors 
took possession of the Richardson barn for a hospital and 
went to cuttin' off men's arms and legs. I was glad they 
was on the place, for they was all good and kind to me. 

The Richardsons had moved away, and a woman whose 
husband was a Southern soldier was stayin' in the house. 



300 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

He had done deserted, and he was there, too. The Rebels 
was lookin' for him every minute, and he knew if he was 
caught he'd be hung. So he and his wife set up all that 
night gittin' ready to go away. They went to the Yan- 
kees and left everything they had. I don't blame 'em. If 
I 'd been goin' to git killed I 'd have gone, too. 

Before they started they cooked two or three pots full 
of chickens, and I said, "Lord 'a' mercy! Mrs. Shaw, 
where 'd you git all them chickens?" 

"They belonged to the Richardsons," she said, "but 
the Richardsons are gone and we might as well have the 
chickens as any one else." 

She brought me a whole one, but I did n't eat it. That 
chicken was so tough I could n't bite it. Mrs. Shaw dished 
out a whole chicken for every one of us and told us to give 
the balance to the doctors. 

The soldiers did all the damage they could at my house. 
Why, they just tuck everything that was of any use to 
'em and then burnt up the house. They were the worst 
people I ever heard tell of. The Bible was in the house, 
and we'd written down in it the dates when our children 
were born. Of course the Bible was destroyed, and I could 
n't tell afterward just how old the children were. 

We had two cats. I don't know whether the soldiers 
eat 'em or what. They were on the place when we left that 
morning and never was seen or heard tell of afterward. 
But I thank God I had life, let alone anything else. 

After a few days the Rebel doctors went away, and then 
some Union doctors come and camped in the yard. 

My husband had pains in his heart very often, and we 
used to make a poultice to relieve him. We'd take hot 
ashes and embers, pour on water, and spread 'em on a 



The Invalid's Wife 301 

cloth while they was hot and smokin', and then we'd lay 
'em on his heart. One day when the baby was 'bout a 
month old my husband had a bad spell. He frothed at 
the mouth, and you could hear him breathing way out to 
the road. I sent a nigger to a tent in the yard for a doctor, 
and the doctor gave my husband half a glass of whiskey 
with a little black stuff like opium in it. Very soon he was 
dead. That doctor killed him. The doctors would just as 
soon kill you as look at you in them days. If you was dead 
they would n't be bothered with you any more. 

My husband had n't been buried more'n a week when 
two soldiers come in one morning and wanted me to give 
'em something to eat. So I put some breakfast on the 
table for 'em, and when they finished eating they tuck a 
jar of sweet milk that was settin' by the fire and drank 
it up. They saw my husband's coat hangin' up there. It 
was a fine coat, plush all over, and they tuck that and all 
his other clothes. They stole my extra clothes, too, so my 
people had to give me shiftin' clothes. They tuck ten or 
twelve quilts. I guess they did! and I reckon they sold 
'em. They carried off all those things and never said, 
"Thank you," nor nothin'. 

Often when the soldiers come to the house I'd pretend 
I was deef and dumb. I played off that way in order to git 
shet of 'em. It was a scarey time. 

They had the finest kind of grub, but they was always 
beggin' and stealin' things to eat. They went across the 
creek and stole a poor woman's chickens — twenty or 
thirty — all she had. There wan't a chicken to be seen 
no place. I had two pigs up in a pen to fatten, and they 
taken them. 

I was raisin' two pet lambs, Peter and Billy. They'd 



302 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

run around and feed and play in the yard. I owned a 
nigger named Jim, and I was so fond of the lambs that I 
even had that nigger take a coarse comb and comb 'em. 
They was 'bout half grown and was the prettiest things I 
ever saw in the world. Nigger Jim kept 'em with him at 
night in his little one-room house. By and by there 
come a morning when I did n't see only one of 'em, and I 
said to Jim, "Where's that other one?" 

"Hit's gone, mist'ess," he said, "and I had both of 
'em in my house last night." 

But I always thought Jim left 'em out in the yard. I 
did n't believe a word he said. Well, I put a shawl over 
my head and went out to camp. I'd always go there to 
hunt up anything that was missing. An officer went 
around with me, and we found the lamb's head. The sol- 
diers did n't deny they had killed it, and within a week 
they got the other lamb. 

Nothin' was ever paid me for what was taken or de- 
stroyed, because I was one of these stout-hearted, and I 
got so mad I would n't ask for any pay. Oh! I have seen 
more trouble on account of that war than 'bout anything 
else in all my life. 

Some of the army meal and other provisions was stored 
in our barn, and one of my cows eat a sack of the flour. 
The doctors gave her calomel and everything, but she 
swelled up and died. 

I had a calf that I tried my best to save. "Now, Jim," 
I said, "you tie this calf to the door inside of your house 
every night, and don't let 'em kill it." 

But one morning there was the rope hangin' from the 
door, and no calf. " I never heard a sound," Jim said. 

That nigger was a sleepy-headed thing anyway. He 



The Invalid's Wife 303 

cooked for me, and at night he'd cook for the Yankees to 
make some money. We made a search for the calf, and, 
I 'clar' ! we found where the thieves had killed it not one 
hundred and fifty yards from Jim's house. In a day or 
two they tuck the calf's mother. 

Those Yankees were the crudest men I ever heard of, 
and I know we got mighty tired of 'em. But I expect our 
folks was just as bad when they was in a strange place. 

One night, when Jim went to water my mar' and horse 
and mule, a soldier tuck 'em all. Oh! I could n't tell 
you 'bout that war as bad as it was. It just broke me 
up. They did n't leave me anything but myself and my 
children. 

Things got so bad I was 'fraid they'd kill the children 
and eat 'em, and I had to go to headquarters and git a 
guard. He was from Philadelphy. It was the rules that he 
should always wear his uniform while on duty, but he'd 
come in the house as often as he could and make himself 
comfortable by takin' off his belt and sword. He did n't 
want word of that to git to the general, and when he heard 
any one comin' he'd put his belt on quick as lightning. 
Then out he ' d run and meet whoever was comin' . " Halt ! " 
he'd say, and you bet they belt. They stopped right there. 

I was standin' at the gate one day when a soldier asked 
me if I was a Rebel or a Yankee. 

That was a pretty question to ask a lady. " It's none of 
your business what I am," I said, "but you might have 
enough sense to know I'm not a Yankee." 

He just laughed and went right along. 

Another time a soldier come to the house cryin'. He'd 
got word that one of his sisters was about to die, and he 
wanted to go to see her. His mother had sent him a trunk 



304 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 

plumb full of provisions that he could n't eat himself and 
could n't take. He asked me a dollar for the trunk and all 
there was in it, and I gave him the dollar to help the poor 
thing to go home. 

I was tickled one day. There was a big green punkin in 
the garden, and some soldiers stood lookin' at it from out- 
side of the fence for half an hour to the best of my knowl- 
edge and belief. They was waitin' for a chance to steal it, 
but I was in my room watchin' 'em. Sometimes they'd 
reach over the fence and pick it up, and then they'd see I 
was lookin' and they'd drap it. 

" I wonder what they want, standin' over that punkin 
so long," I said to myself, and finally I walked out and 
spoke to 'em. 

"Lady, can you spare this watermelon?" they said. 

"I can spare it," I answered, "but that's not a water- 
melon. It's a punkin." 

They did n't beheve me, and they said, " Will you give 
it to us?" ^ 

"Yes, indeed!" I said, "take it along." 

I did n't care anything about the punkin. They'd stole 
my cows, and I had n't nothin' to feed it to. Everything 
had been taken so clean that I had to draw rashions till 
the country got settled down. I tell you we-all see the cruel 
time. If you'd been hyar you'd have seen it, too. 



XXXIX 

The Miner's Son ^ 

They used to work a gold mine here in the Wilderness, a 
little south of the Rapidan, and my father was the manager. 
The mine employed over a hundred men, and I reckon 
there was all of twenty-five houses clustered around it. 
My father had cleared a few acres and built a frame house, 
and we tended the land almost like a garden spot. Most of 
the farm work was done by us boys, but Father helped after 
his working hours at the mine, and we hired some. We 
raised corn and potatoes, and we had a few cattle that run 
on the commons in summer and that we kept in stables 
during the winter and fed from our hay and fodder stacks. 
It was pretty well a thicket all around outside of the village. 

About the first year of the war the mine broke up. A 
good many of the men went into the army, and the fam- 
ilies scattered till I s'pose half the houses was empty. 

The battle was fought here early in May, 1864. It was 
nothing new for us to see soldiers. We were on a main high- 
way, and thar'd often been a dash through of cavalry or 
infantry. In fact, we were on the lookout for 'em all the 
time. If we heard 'em a-comin' my father always went into 

1 He was getting along in years, but he was still stout-framed and 
vigorous. His home was in the Wilderness, but it was one of several in 
a cleared tract of considerable extent where there was grassland and 
cornfields. I visited with him in a rather barren apartment whose chief 
article of furniture was a bed, and whose most cheerful feature was a 
fireplace in which a few sticks of wood were burning with a pleasant 
crackle and leaping of ruddy flames. 



306 The Wilderness 

the house. The Confederates was getting as many men as 
they could for their army, and an officer had told him that 
if he was caught out they might conscript him. He was 
sixty years old, but the officer said they'd very likely take 
him whether he was an old man or not. 

We fared pretty hard the year befo' the Battle of the 
Wilderness, when General Meade was through here. It was 
in November, and I was twelve years old. Meade had been 
down farther south, but he had to fall back, and a drove of 
his men come to the mine village. I think they was some 
that just followed the main army butchering hogs and cattle 
and gathering up food for the troops. We heard, befo' they 
got here, how they was robbing people and burning every 
vacant house, and we knew they'd get our chickens sure if 
they saw 'em runnin' around. So we killed all our fowls up 
and dressed 'em, and put 'em in tubs and salted 'em down. 
Thar was some thirty or forty. We set the tubs in a closet, 
and thought we'd made certain of havin' those chickens 
for our own use. But we was just fixin' 'em in shape for the 
raiders. The soldiers come in and searched the house, and 
they was very rough about it. "Get out of the way," 
they'd say, and they was tickled enough to find those 
fowls all ready to cook. 

They swarmed over the whole place, and we could n't 
do anything at all to save our property. The house was 
full, and the yard was full. I s'pose thar was five hundred 
inside of the inclosure. Most of 'em had come to drink from 
our spring that was close to the house. 

It was a clear, sunshiny day, but very cold, and the 
ground was frozen. Our cattle was in the stables. We had 
about twelve head, and the soldiers got 'em out and shot 
*em down and skinned 'em. They throwed the four quar- 



The Miner's Son 307 

ters in their wagons to carry along and left the balance. 
Our hogs was served the same way. We had about fifty 
barrels of corn in the crib; and we say five bushels to a bar- 
rel down here. They took that, and they took about 'leven 
hundred pounds of pork; and all the time the officers just 
stood back and looked like they'd turned their men loose 
to do as they pleased. 

Those soldiers stole all our clothes. They'd even bust 
the trunks open and take the girls' clothes and their little 
jewelry and things. If they needed a sack they'd get a 
woman's skirt and tie a string around the top and put a 
piece of meat in it, or whatever they'd picked up. Then 
they could fasten it to the saddle and so carry it. Yes, 
they'd use a skirt just that-a-way. That was the way they 
done it. 

When they had cleared up everything they pulled off 
and left us destitute. They was all gone across the Rapi- 
dan befo' night. We did n't have no supper. Thar was n't 
a piece of meat of any kind on the premises, but we had 
perhaps a bushel of flour, and we baked loaf-bread, and 
every night and morning we'd take our pone and a glass 
of water. I went to bed crying many a night I was so hun- 
gry. We just had to truck around the best we could to get 
food. Some of the neighbors who lived out of sight more 
away from the main road did n't lose as we did, and they'd 
perhaps have a little to spare that we could buy. 

We had a very different experience when General Grant 
come. He was ready for business and thar was no raidin'. 
But he did n't have no idea thar'd be a battle here in this 
Wilderness when he crossed the Rapidan on May 4th. 
Early the next morning the Rebels attacked him over on 
the plain about a mile from whar we lived. The skirmish 



308 The Wilderness 

line went right through our yard, and they told us we'd 
better go away. So we went off a half mile toward the 
Rapidan to a house that had a cellar in it. We left the dogs 
at home and the door unlocked, but the soldiers never come 
in the house, and nothing was touched or harmed at all. 

We carried some chairs and benches down in the cellar 
and stayed the night out. Thar must have been twenty or 
thirty of us. The Confederates was shelling Northern rein- 
forcements that was crossing the Rapidan, and when we 
looked out in the evening we could see the Rebel shells fly- 
ing over our heads. Each shell showed like a swift-moving 
blaze of fire with a short streak behind it. That shelling 
was pretty scarey. I don't s'pose the older people done any 
sleeping that night. They just set thar and listened to the 
shells goin' over. We never had any supper nor breakfast 
neither. 

About sunrise we went home. The armies had moved on, 
and the firing line was getting mo' distant from us, but all 
day we could hear the musketry. It was a continual roll 
like distant thunder, for the battle was too far away to dis- 
tinguish one gun from another. The troops were charging 
each other right in the thickets. Often forest fires would 
break out from the shootin', and that would be awful for 
the wounded. Sometimes the Yankees would be pushed 
back, and sometimes the Rebels, but at last the Rebels 
withdrew, and only four days later they fought Grant 
again down at Spotsylvania. 

It was a great relief when the fighting here was over. 
We were just simply glad it had passed off — like a storm, 
you know. The armies had lost nearly thirty thousand 
men in all, and that battlefield was a dreadful thing after 
they'd gone. Besides the dead men and dead horses thar 



The Miner's Son 309 

was anything you could think of that an army would cany 
strewed around in the woods. The men had thrown the 
things away as they left, and not much of it was South- 
ern property, for the South had mighty little to throw 
away. 

Every day we'd go out through the woods to pick up 
things, and so did all the neighbors. The armies had no 
time to come back for what they had left, and we took what 
we could use. We could find anything we wanted. Thar 
was army clothing of all kinds, and saddles and bridles and 
tents, and thar was any number of guns. We find some of 
them guns now. We could have got wagon loads of blank- 
ets, and whar the soldiers cooked their rashions we'd find 
plenty of knives, spoons, and coffee boilers. The coffee 
boilers was tin pots with a handle on one side and a spout 
on the other. Sometimes we'd come across a whole bar'l of 
hardtacks. Co'se thar was a good deal of meat left, but we 
did n't care for that in among the dead men. 

The battle day was very warm for the time of year, and 
men who were killed when the weather was hot like that 
would swell as much as their clothes would let 'em and turn 
just as black in the face as your coat. I never want to butt 
up against nothing else like that. The whole air was tainted. 
It was a horrid smell, and it was made worse by the refuse 
left whar the cattle was butchered. I was glad we did n't 
live right on the battlefield in among all that the way some 
people did. 

Just as soon as the fighting was over the wounded were 
picked up, but thar was quite a number that the searchers 
never got. We found one right on the side of the turnpike 
three or four days after the battle. His brains were running 
out from a hole in the back of his head. He could n't talk, 



SIO The Wilderness 

but he made a sign for water, and my father told me to 
take one of those coffee boilers and get some. 

I went a quarter of a mile to a branch and filled the coffee 
boiler and brought it back. We held his head up, but he 
could n't drink. It seem like the water strangled him. But 
we got him some hardtack, and he dipped that in the water 
and let it saturate, and then he could suck it. The flies 
bothered him, and Father broke a bush and gave it to him. 
He had the strength to use his hands and scare the flies off. 
He was three mile from our house, and we left him thar 
layin' on the pine needles. 

We come back to him every day for eight or ten days as 
long as he lived. It was awful to see the poor fellow. He 
had a pretty hard time after he got so he could n't fight the 
flies. Finally we come thar one morning and found him 
dead, and we left his body whar it was. 

While we was lookin' around on the battlefield we 
noticed one of the men who'd been killed layin' with his 
coat thrown back, and we could see the edge of a Testa- 
ment in an inside pocket. Father said to me, "Boy, get 
that." 

But I did n't have the courage, and he took it and give it 
to me. The name of the soldier's mother, and her address 
— Beaver, Maine — was written on the flyleaf. I kept 
that Testament for fifteen years afterward. Then I wrote 
to the flyleaf address, and I got a reply and sent the book 
to the dead soldier's folks. In return they sent me a nice 
Bible. I s'pose they was mighty glad to get that little 
Testament. 

Hundreds of those who perished in the battle here were 
not buried, but laid scattered around on the ground. The 
men who did the burying missed 'em in the thick brush, 




THE WOUNDED MAN AND HIS HARDTACK 



The Miner's Son 311 

and their bones was thar till after the war. We can find 
bones on the battlefield sometimes now, but the govern- 
ment sent a burial corps here soon after the war ended, and 
they gathered up most of the bones and carried 'em to the 
National Cemetery at Fredericksburg. About the same 
time a lot of the bones of the horses that was killed during 
the battle was carted off to be ground up for fertilizer. 



XL 
A Youth on a Farm ^ 

I WAS a boy of fourteen when the battle was fought here. 
That was n't our first experience with armies. Consider- 
able fighting was done right around in this region, and 
in April, 1863, our cattle was drove off on the hoof by Joe 
Hooker on his march to Chancellorsville, which is less'n 
ten miles away. 

There used to be a song about " Old Joe Hooker comin' 
out to the Wilderness." That referred to the time when he 
was through here and we lost our cattle. We had a right 
good little bunch of 'em — possibly ten or twelve or fif- 
teen — something like that. Me and my aunt tried to see 
an officer to get our cattle back. I reckon we followed the 
troops as much as a mile, but we could get no satisfaction. 
It seem to me like we had one cow and heifer left. I think 
they broke and got away and come back afterward. 

Late in the autumn of that same year Meade was through 
here, and he got our sheep and hogs and hens and geese. 
We had one gander that must have been forty or fifty 
years old. He was down on the creek with the geese, and 
they got him, too. I 've always heard that Meade skinned 
the geese to get the feathers off. All our horses was taken 
except one old blind mar'. 

The men come right in our house, and they'd go for the 

1 The former farm boy was now a ponderous, gray old man. I found 
him sitting with a few cronies on the porch of a rude little Wilderness 
store, and there we talked. 



A Youth on a Farm 313 

places where we kept our victuals the first thing. If we 
did n't give 'em what they wanted they'd threaten to 
break our dishes. They was just wild, rattlin' fools. Some 
claim they was foragin' for the army, but that's not likely. 
I don't s'pose this country could have afforded Meade's 
troops rashions for one meal even. I reckon, sir, the men 
who raided our houses was n't acting under orders. They 
was pillaging. 

We did n't have enough to eat after the armies passed, 
and we had to go off twenty-five or thirty miles where they 
did n't invade and get what we could. Some of the people 
had rashions issued to 'em by the Confederate army or the 
state. 

There was very little doing on the farm the next spring. 
Father was an old man crippled up with rheumatism pretty 
much as I am now, and we had nothin' but that old blind 
mar' to use breakin' the land. But we managed to plough 
several acres and planted one small field of corn. Then 
Grant's troops come and trampled the corn in the ground. 
A big slew of 'em passed right through our place, and some 
of 'em camped on our farm and burnt a lot of our fence 
rails. Rails make a mighty good fire, and wherever a bunch 
of soldiers camped they burnt as many as they wanted. 

The troops on our land broke camp the next morning 
and most of 'em marched off and went into battle. Some 
of the skirmishers stayed around near our house, but there 
was no regular pitched battle within a mile. When the 
guns was not firin' too rapid I was out standin' on a hill to 
see what I could see. The main road was not far away, and 
I could watch the troops passin', but the battle was in the 
forest. I could hear the guns firin' and the men yellin', and 
I could hear the balls whistle, too. 



314 The Wilderness 

At one time there was firin' across our house. I went in- 
doors. There was no standin' out then, by George! We 
had a frame house, but it was small and did n't have any 
cellar. None of us was hurt though. The battle kept on all 
day, and they was fightin' like the mischief in the night, 
and there was more fightin' the next day. 

Afterward the dead men lay so thick that in some places 
you could step from one body to another. There was most 
everything you could look at strewed around in the woods. 
There was camp kettles and hardtack and packages of 
coffee and ammunition and any quantity of guns. I 'd pick 
up the guns and enjoy myself shootin'. I've got two or 
three old army guns now at the cornhouse. You could fill 
a wagon with clothing in a very short distance, and lots of 
it was never picked up but lay and rotted on the ground. 
Plenty of people was on the field same as I was, lookin' 
around and carry in' off what they wanted. 

Thousands of saplings was cut off by bullets, and I saw 
large trees that had been felled by the shells and balls. 
There are bullets in the trees here yet. The saw-mill men 
often come across 'em in the trunks of the pines and big 
oaks. It don't matter when the saw hits a lead bullet. The 
teeth cut right through that, but when a circle saw such 
as is used here runs into a big, round, solid steel ball, or 
half a bumbshell, or something like that, the shanks are 
torn all to pieces, and the saw is ruined. 

Another thing that makes trouble for our sawmills is 
spikes. You see the troops would generally aim to camp in 
timber, and they'd drive spikes into the trees to hitch their 
horses to. So our saws are injured as a result of the war 
even where no battle was fought. 

Well, that old Battle of the Wilderness was terrifying, 



A Youth on a Farm 315 

and the war was disastrous for us, but if I had my Hfe to 
Uve over I'd take it all in again. Those were interesting 
times, and what I saw was well worth witnessing. 'Long 
toward the last of the war I had right smart anxiety to be 
in the army. That was boyishness, I reckon. 



XLI 

The Trucker's Lad^ 

I WAS eight years old when Lee and Grant fought at Cold 
Harbor. We're right on the battlefield now, and hyar on 
this little rising ground is whar Lee's army was posted. 
The woods all around was full of rifle-pits. My boys found 
one of those rifle-pits this morning when they were digging 
up a stump. If the bullets were flying, a soldier would n't 
stop more'n five minutes before he'd start scraping a hole 
to get into. 

Dad was a trucker, and we lived two mile from hyar in 
an old-fashioned farmhouse. In those days folks raised 
more variety than they do now, and we got about every- 
thing we needed to eat and wear right off our own land. 
But late years we haul our produce to market and spend 
nearly all the money that is paid for it before we come back. 

We had four hundred acres of cleared land and grew corn 
and potatoes, and wheat, oats, and grass, and all kinds of 
truck stuff such as watermelons, cabbage, tomatoes, and 
sweet potatoes. We carried the truck stuff to Richmond, 
which is about a dozen mile away, in two-wheeled carts 
drawn by one horse. In summer time we kept from three 
to five carts going constantly, and even on Sundays we 

1 He was a typical Southern countryman with a long moustache and 
a black slouch hat. We visited together while he stood leaning against 
a porch post of a rude, shanty-like rural store. His gray, saddled mule 
was hitched near by waiting patiently till its owner was ready to start 
for home. 



The Trucker's Lad 317 

did n't stop work entirely. For instance, if the cantelopes 
were ripe, they had to be picked every day, and we'd gather 
and pack 'em up on Sunday morning. Such work was con- 
sidered a necessity. Besides, it was a case of " Everybody 's 
doing it," as the song says. I know that my mother did n't 
find fault, and she was a regular fightin' Methodist. Nor 
did the preachers themselves complain. But we did n't 
work all day. We had to go to church. 

McClellan was through hyar in 1862 and fought in this 
neighborhood for nearly a week night and day right along, 
Thar was a complete roar all the time. But we did n't see 
much of the Yankees then at Cold Harbor. No sooner did 
they get hyar than they was gone. It look like they did n't 
pause a minute, but was swept right off just as you might 
blow out a candle. 

Grant moved more gradual. He and Lee had been fight- 
in' pretty steady for a month, beginnin' with the Battle 
of the Wilderness, before they fought hyar on June 3d, 
1864. 

We'd got along very well with McClellan's men. They 
paid for every drop of milk and anything else they got, but 
Grant's troops simply took all that they could lay their 
hands on. Sheridan arrived several days ahead of the main 
army, and, as a general thing, what he could n't carry 
along he destroyed. He picked up all the horses that were 
any good. We had four or five beauties on our place and he 
got them. But he did n't find the things we had in our 
cellar, and he did n't usually take quite all of a man's corn. 

Out our way the Cold Harbor fight began on a Friday 
at Old Church, five mile northeast of hyar. They had a 
right smart skirmish over thar. It was about mid-day that 
the Confederates went past our house goin' in that direc- 



318 Cold Harbor 

tion. Thar was fifteen hundred cavahy ridin' four abreast. 
They run right into the Yankees and come mighty near 
not gettin' out. You see we had only a little handful of 
men down thar, and they had to fall back. Some of 'em 
come back fast enough to be fallin', too. They reached our 
place at three o'clock to the best of my memory. The 
officers tried to form a line right south of the house, but 
when the Yankees got within quarter of a mile the line 
broke. 

I can't say that I was scared. I was runnin* around to 
see what was goin' on, and Dad was after me with a big 
stick tryin' to drive me into the basement. He wanted me 
to go into the ground whar I'd be safe from the flyin' 
bullets. 

The Confederates had hardly gone when the Yankees 
swarmed around the house, and General Merritt rode up 
to the door. He'd lost his hat and was wearing one he'd 
picked up. It was an old yellow hat that had gone to seed 
and had a hole in it. When McClellan was hyar General 
Merritt had camped in our yard, and now he spoke to Dad 
and said, "Well, old man, I'm glad to see you"; and he 
asked for some whiskey. 

Dad owned about fifty hogs and twelve or fifteen head 
of cattle. We got most of the cattle up that evening from 
whar they were grazing and penned 'em close to the house. 
General Merritt put on a guard and would n't let the sol- 
diers trouble 'em, but we lost one yearling. The hogs ran 
wild, and they were scared by the noise and commotion and 
got off in the creeks and swamps whar they were safe. 

Thar was shelling Friday night, and we had to go in our 
cellar, but the gunners did n't get any range on our house, 
and late in the night we went upstairs. The soldiers were 



The Trucker's Lad 319 

all over our place, and Dad used to say after the war that 
every man in Grant's army had camped on his farm one 
time or other. Near our house was an old field, and I'll 
bet two or three thousand soldiers was layin' around thar 
that Friday night. 

In the morning the whole country as far as I could see, 
everywhar, was covered with tents and men. The big 
battle was soon being fought and the noise of the firearms 
was p-r-r-r-r-r — just like that all the time. It sounded 
more like a corn-sheller rattlin' than anything else. Be- 
sides thar was the boom, boom! of the cannon. 

The Yankees had to charge across swampy low ground 
and up a slope where the Confederates had fixed up some 
rough breastworks to protect 'em. Lee's position was a 
strong one that could only be attacked in front, and 
Grant's troops saw that they were goin' to be slaughtered. 
Many of 'em attached labels to their clothes givin' their 
names and addresses so that when their bodies were picked 
up friends at home could be informed of their death. The 
bullets just mowed 'em down, and history records that 
Grant lost five thousand men in eight minutes. 

Thar was an officer who had some soldiers camped just 
back of our house. He was settin' in the shed with my 
father when an officer higher up rode into the yard and 
said to him: "Your men have n't had any fun yet. Take 
*em along and put 'em to the front." 

One hundred and twenty men marched off in accord with 
that order. Late in the day twenty-one returned to their 
camping-place. The bullets had got the rest. 

The really hard fightin' was all done inside of half an 
hour, and it was the bloodiest half hour ever known in 
America. Twelve thousand Union men had been killed or 



320 Cold Harbor 

wounded, and Grant said, in later life, that the assault 
hyar at Cold Harbor was his greatest military mis- 
take. 

The armies had a heap of ambulances, but thar was n't 
enough of 'em, and every kind of wagon you could think of 
was used also. Plenty of those wagons had no springs. 
They were on the road in one continual line with the men 
inside layin' flat on their backs any way the wagon men 
could fix 'em. Most of the wagons carried the wounded 
fifteen mile to the railway. 

Thar was a hospital tent put up on a level piece of land 
on our place. Seem to me it was as much as forty feet wide 
and two hundred feet long. At its far end were some doc- 
tors while the wounded were arriving. The doctors had 
their sleeves rolled up like butchers, and they 'd whack a leg 
off, bind up the stump, and send the poor fellow along; 
then do the same for the next one. 

Just after the battle a wounded man came to the 
house. A bullet had passed straight through the middle 
of his wrist. Mother bandaged the wound. All those old- 
fashioned women knew how to doctor. While she dressed 
it up for him the man stood and cried like a baby. He told 
her he 'd been to our place when McClellan was down hyar 
and at that time had stole a hive of bees from us. He put 
the hive on his shoulder and ran like the dickens so that 
the bees flew back and did n't sting him much. 

"You called me a nasty, stinkin' bloodhoun'," he said 
to Mother, "and I thought if I'd got so low as that it 
was time for me to mend my ways. I 've never stole from 
anybody since, but have made out on my rashions." 

The troops left the vicinity of the battlefield within 
twenty-four hours, and on Sunday morning Dad sent me 



The Trucker's Lad 321 

and my brother, who was three years older than I was to a 
day, to see how my sister had got along. She was married, 
and her house was about half way to Richmond. We had 
to go on foot because our horses were all stolen, and we left 
the road and cut right through the country hyar. It was 
probably ten o'clock when we started. We soon struck the 
battlefield, and we could judge something of how hot the 
fight had been by the looks of the trees. They had no more 
bark on 'em than the side of a house. 

Plenty of guns and knapsacks were scattered about thar, 
and the dead men were layin' on the ground putrifyin'. 
The battlefield was as blue as could be with dead Union 
soldiers. They lay just as thick as watermelons ripening 
in a patch. I never seen anything like that battlefield in 
my life. People said you could walk on the bodies from hyar 
to Gaines's Mills, two mile, without touchin' your foot 
to the ground. I know you could n't get through whar the 
bodies lay thickest without steppin' sideways between 'em. 
In one place the troops had to clear the bodies out of the 
road so they could get up and down it, and they made great 
piles — thirty, forty, and fifty in a pile. 

Two local men was thar on the battlefield that Sunday 
morning searchin' dead men's pockets. One of 'em was 
white and the other black. I began to feel sick. Lookin' at 
the dead men did n't agree with me, but my brother did n't 
mind anything, and he was interested to watch those two 
fellers robbin' the bodies. It was a gruesome business that 
they were at. The bodies had fallen on top of each other in 
the ditches whar thar were breastworks, and the men had 
to pull the top ones off to get at the pockets of those that 
lay underneath. Often they found a half dollar or so, or a 
medal, or something else of value. I expect they got right 



322 Cold Harbor 

smart in all, and I reckon the sight of that plunder kept 
their stomachs all right. 

We was thar maybe an hour. By that time I was gettin' 
pretty weak and my brother led me off. Oh ! it was a horrid 
sight. I would n't want to look at it again. A good many 
bodies lay on the field for quite a while, but I suppose they 
were all buried and covered up in the course of a week. 

We found things was all right at my sister's, and we come 
home that same day and walked across the battlefield 
again. I got away from it that time as quick as I could 
without any stoppin'. 



XLII 
A Rustic Slave Woman ^ 

I BELONGED to ol' Doctor Tyler. He was President Tyler's 
brother. Early in the war he died, and then I belonged to 
his son, the young doctor. I was raised in the house and 
waited on the white folks thar. They always called my 
mother "Mammy." 

At the time the war began I was married and I had sev- 
eral children. We lived in a log house the same as the other 
slave families did. I reckon the Tylers had as many as ten 
of those log houses. They was built like a street. At one 
end of each house was a chimbley made of sticks and mud. 
The fireplace inside was so large we could burn logs in it 
and have great big fires to keep us warm. Clay mud was 
thrown between the logs to stop the cracks, and it hard- 
ened and stuck thar. Oh! a log house can be made mighty 
comfortable. 

Everybody had to work if they was slaves. The little 
children would pick cotton. I used to weave and spin and 
all like of that. The looms and spinning-wheels was in the 
shop and washroom. 

Each family had a garden, and we had pigs and chickens. 

* I did not find her at the tiny house on the borders of some thin 
pine woods where she lived, but by dint of searching discovered her 
at a white neighbor's. She was stalwart of frame, but slow of move- 
ment, very black, and with a countenance that beamed amiably as 
she told her story. She sat in the doorway of the outdoor kitchen, 
an ugly new structure of unplaned boards, and I sat close by under 
a tree in a chair. 



324 Cold Harbor 

Master used to allow us to raise one hog. He'd give us a 
little pig, and when it had grown to be a hog and the time 
came to fatten it, Master would have the hog put in his pen, 
and we'd get it when it was butchered. 

He let us have 'bout three or four hens and furnished the 
feed for 'em, and when we killed a couple of hens one would 
be for him, and he had half the chickens. 

The first Yankee raid down hyar was in the summer of 
1862. It was then that the children came running one day 
to Doctor Tyler and said: "Master, thar are lots of men on 
horseback up the road, and they have blue clothes on. 
Come and look." 

The children had never seen nobody dressed that away. 
In fifteen minutes the yard was full of Union cavalry, but 
they soon went on, and they did n't do no harm. 

We fared very well through this country till Sheridan's 
cavalry came in 1864. His men was quite troublesome and 
we saw hard times. They did n't tarry long — only one 
night, but they swept the deck and burned the broom. If a 
cavalryman come across one of the hogs that ran in the 
woods he'd kill it and throw it up on his horse and carry it 
away. They got Mother's hog right out of the pen. I 
reckon it weighed over a hundred. They took every hen 
they could find. We thought they had got all of ours, but 
one ol' hen was settin' in a gully in the orchard. She was 
under a brush pile and nobody did n't know she was thar 
till after the battle. Then she come to the house with 
fifteen chickens. 

The raiders drawed the clothes off my mother's line, and 
they took a new country-wove counterpane and a dress. 
The farmers had all their corn and fodder stolen or de- 
stroyed, and those men actually would go into your kitchen 



A Rustic Slave Woman 325 

and take the bread out of the skillet. They come into our 
house and pointed to a featherbed, and one of 'em said to 
Mother, "Is that your bed?" 

"Yes," she told him. 

"I believe it 's a blamed ol' Reb's bed," he said, and he 
went off with it. We found it afterward up hyar at Cold 
Harbor all ripped open. 

Some told us that Uncle Sam would pay for everything 
that was taken or destroyed, but we poor slaves never got 
any pay for what we lost. 

Sheridan's men went into the white people's houses and 
took the silverware and carried it off, and they 'd take the 
bolsters off the beds and empty out the feathers so they'd 
have bags to hold corn or wheat or anything they wanted 
to put into 'em. If they saw pretty and nice things that 
they could n't carry they just broke 'em up. The Widow 
Tyler owned some very costly silverware. It was gilted 
with gold. But the Yankees did n't have a chance to steal 
that because she had taken it to Jefferson Davis for safe 
keeping. I don't know whether she ever got it again. 

The raiders come to the Tylers' house just as the family 
was settin' down to the dinner table. Thar had n't any one 
eaten a mouthful, and the soldiers walked in and took hold 
of the tablecloth and pulled it off so everything on it went 
right down, and the china and glassware broke up on the 
floor. Then they caught a lot of hens, and after cutting off 
the heads with their swords, put 'em in the tablecloth. 
They tied those hens up just like clothes that was goin' to 
be sent to wash, and carried 'em off on one of their horses. 

The Tylers had some great big books with leather backs, 
and the soldiers carried off all of those that they could, and 
they mashed up two looms and all the spinning-wheels. 



326 Cold Harbor 

When Grant's and Lee's armies got hyar, we kept 
watchin' which way they was movin', and the officers 
promised to tell us if thar was any danger. On the morning 
of the big battle it looked as if they might fight right on 
our place and tear things all to pieces. So the Union offi- 
cers told us to take the children and every one and go 
away back in the rear. We all went. Most of us traveled 
on foot, and the women toted the children that could n't 
walk. My mother was afflicted with the rheumatism, and 
we hitched a horse into a market cart and carried her. 
Young Doctor Tyler's wife had a baby only a few hours 
old, and we fixed a bed in a carriage and took her thataway. 

We went 'bout a mile and a half to another house, and 
the battle was goin' on. Lord 'a' mercy! it seem like the 
guns shook the whole earth, and we could see the smoke 
rise as if thar was a big fire. Thousands and thousands was 
killed, and if the Yankees captured a Rebel who could do 
anything at all to assist they made him come and help the 
wounded. 

Doctor Tyler's house was used for a hospital, and guards 
were posted all around the place. Next day we colored 
people come back. When I got thar one of the wounded 
men was settin' on the steps of the big house beggin' for 
water. I went to the well, which was right in the yard, and 
got some. He was leaning back too weak to move, and I 
put my arm behind his head and gave him a drink. But 
the water and some blood come right out of a wound in his 
chest, and he fell over dead. 

Well, I helped what I could. Some Sisters of Charity 
were thar, and they was nice ladies and certainly tended to 
the wounded good. I went around, too, and if I see a man 
suffering I would give him water, and I made coffee and 



A Rustic Slave Woman 327 

cooked and washed. They brought the bundles of clothes 
to my house. 

Monday I went on the battlefield. Hundreds of people 
was lookin' around thar, and some of 'em was what we 
called "grave robbers" and was goin' along pullin' off 
coats and boots. I took my oldest child with me. She was 
big enough to comb her own hair, and she could sweep up 
a floor very good, and tote chips, and stay in a room and 
keep the fire. We come to whar a lot of dead soldiers was 
buried. They was in great long trenches and not very well 
covered, and some hogs was down thar eating of the dead 
bodies. Pretty soon a dog that belonged on our place ran 
past us with a man's foot in his mouth. 

"Oh, Mamma!" my girl said, "look what Tige has got." 

Then she fainted and fell. Thar was a branch near by, 
and some of us older people got water and threw on her. 
She come to, but we had to tote her all the way home. Thar 
were five or six of us, and we took turns. As soon as we got 
her in the house I sent for the doctor. He was thar in a 
very short time, and he said: "You deserve to lose the 
child. You had no business to take her to the battlefield." 
Anyway, I never did go to it no more. 

They buried the dead soldiers as fast as they could, and 
they tore the fences to pieces and used 'em to burn up the 
dead horses and the ol' stinkin' beef and the like of that. 

The Tyler bam was filled with guns stacked up thar, and 
the wagons come and took 'em away. Besides, the wagons 
took away a whole parcel of things that the children had 
picked up. My little boy had an army blanket and over- 
coat he had brought from the battlefield. He wanted me 
to make him a suit of clothes out of 'em, and when he saw 
the wagons comin' he took the blanket and overcoat and 



328 Cold Harbor 

ran down the hill to the swamp and hid 'em in the 
bushes. 

As soon as the Union army retreated back most of the 
colored people went away with it. They did n't like bein' 
slaves. Often they had masters who drove 'em so they 
fared mighty bad — mighty bad! So off they went with 
the Northern army, and some got kilt and some did n't. 
A good many come back when the war was over. 

Not long after the battle hyar the Widow Tyler moved 
to town, and she took the oldest child from each of the 
slave families. That was pretty hard on us, but we could 
n't help ourselves. The young doctor wanted to get out of 
the way of the army, and he went off with his family and 
left us with nothing. We just had to shift for ourselves. 

The Tyler house was a Union hospital for the rest of the 
war, and the people in charge paid us for everything we did. 
They paid us for work, and they bought peas, onions, let- 
tuce, and such things from us. I 've gathered many a lot of 
vegetables from the garden for 'em. 

Every Sunday the soldiers had meetings on the lawn — 
preaching, you know, for the hospital. A Httle drummer 
boy beat his drum to call the soldiers to the meetings. I 
certainly did fall in love with that little feller. He said that 
when the war ended, he was comin' down South to see me, 
if he did n't get killed. I used to cook for him. I 've give 
him many a mouthful to eat. He was mighty fond of corn- 
bread. So was all the soldiers. They 'd give you hardtacks 
for it. I had good teeth and I could bite them hardtacks, 
but ol' people would soak 'em in water. One while we 
could n't get anything else in the world to eat but beef and 
hardtacks. 

We used to parch rye and wheat and corn and sweet 



A Rustic Slave Woman 329 

potatoes for coffee. Sometimes we'd grind meal and parch 
that and make meal coffee. Some liked it and some did n't. 
It went very well with milk. 

Thar was a number of different kinds of leaves that did 
for tea, such as sassafras and sage and pine needles. Then 
thar was holly. That was healthy. 

We hardly ever seen sugar, but we could get molasses. 

If we had plenty of corn we 'd take some of it and boil it 
in a weak lye, and then wash it and rub it between our 
hands to get the hulls off. It would wash out right white. 
After that we'd put it on the fire to cook and make hominy. 
Perhaps we 'd boil a piece of pork in with it. Some people 
would eat butter with the hominy if they could get any. 
The hominj^ was good with molasses, and if you fried it and 
fried some meat, too, it was good that way. Sometimes we 
made bread out of it. 

Oh! but we were glad when the cruel war was over. The 
white people said it was a civil war, but we slaves called it 
cruel. 



XLIII 
A Man from the Ranks ^ 

I WAS a young fellow of twenty-three, but I 'd been in the 
army a good long time. We 'd come all the way down from 
the Wilderness skirmishing and fighting battles to keep 
Grant from getting at Richmond. 

My father's home was near Cold Harbor, and when we 
got here General Lee made his headquarters there. While 
we were in the vicinity I had a chance to visit the house a 
number of times. I reckon I had n't been home befo' for 
twelve months. Soldiers were camped all over the whole 
country roundabout, but there was no fighting on our 
place, for it was right smart in the rear. 

At daybreak of June 3d we went into battle, but I 
have n't much to say about that. It 's mighty little infor- 
mation a soldier can give concerning a big fight. All a man 
in the ranks done was to foller the man in front of him. He 
had hardly any chance to look around and seldom knew 
where he was goin' when he started somewhere. The feller 
at home near where a battle was being fought saw more 
than the soldiers did. 

1 At the time I met him he was living with a local farmer for whom 
he worked. No doubt he was an excellent helper, for though somewhat 
stiff with age he was big and strong and intelligent. I made his ac- 
quaintance in the evening when he was sitting with his hat on in the 
kitchen of his employer. The housewife was busy there about her work, 
and just as I entered had picked up the oil can to encourage a refrac- 
tory fire in the stove. The oil was administered with a resultant flash 
and bang and smudge that were more startling than agreeable. 



A Man from the Ranks 331 

My regiment stayed two days on the fighting Une here 
sharpshooting in the bushes. One Yankee got up within 
twenty paces of me. I was behind a tree, and he shot at 
me. The bullet took a piece of bark off. I reckon the tree 
was about eighteen inches in diameter, and as many as a 
thousand bullets must have gone in it. I saw afterward that 
it was killed. It was shot from bottom to top, and the bark 
was tore all to pieces. Trees bigger than a stovepipe were 
cut down by nothing in the world but Minie balls and lay 
all tangled up. Last fall they were sawing a big white oak 
log at a sawmill here and struck a grapeshot. That grape- 
shot broke every tooth out of the saw. 

It was a red-hot fight we had at Cold Harbor. After the 
bloody struggle was over Grant's army lay near by for 
several days. One of the days was Sunday, but when these 
battles was goin' on we soldiers could n't tell when Sunday 
was, and that 's the truth. One day was just like another. 

My brother had married an Allison. He was in the army, 
and she had been stayin' at the Allison house, which stood 
right on the fighting ground. She had to get out before the 
battle began. The night after the battle my brother and 
his wife and some others of us got a permit to go to the 
Allison house to see what we could save. The Confederates 
had been in and around the house, and they 'd thrown up 
breastworks right through the yard. Besides, they 'd dug 
a ditch so they could go to the spring without exposing 
themselves. When my brother's wife saw that ditch she 
was very much distressed. "Oh! my money's gone!" she 
cried. 

She had put some money in a cigar box. There was gold 
and silver. I don't know how much. Now she was sure it 
had been taken, but she scratched under a bush and found 



332 Cold Harbor 

it. The ditch was within two feet of the spot. She did n't 
cry no more. 

The house had been riddled. You could see right through 
the roof and anywhere. The family could n't come back to 
it till it was made over. We went in and discovered that the 
cannon-balls had struck the feather beds, and the feathers 
were strewed all over the rooms. It looked like a goose nest 
in there. We could n't have any light for fear of drawing 
the fire of the enemy, but we could see those feathers with- 
out any light. 

Everything was shot to pieces. There was nothing left 
hardly that was worth a cent. We gathered up some of the 
feathers into old bags and ticks, and we got quite a lot of 
clothing and a number of cups and saucers and more or less 
other tableware. The bullets were shooting in our direc- 
tion all the time, but there was considerable talking and 
giggling among us as we felt around for things to carry off 
and tried to bundle 'em up. Several times the Confederate 
sharpshooters came to the house to beg us not to make so 
much noise. They were afraid the Federals would think 
something unusual was goin' on and we 'd get a volley 
instead of scattering bullets. 

There were seven of us, and we brought away a ton from 
the house that night. After we 'd gone about half a mile 
we reached our command. We put the things in an ambu- 
lance there and sent 'em to my father's house. 

My brother's wife never saw her husband any more 
after that night. He got killed in a battle a little later. 

One of my uncles was in Lee's army when it fought here, 
and his house was not far from where the fightin' was fierc- 
est. He had a log house, but the logs was hewn down fiat, 
and it was plastered inside. You could make a fine house 



A Man from the Ranks 333 

by fixin' it that way, but of course, if it was set on log pil- 
lars, as most of our houses were, it would be let down when 
the pillars rotted and would be one-sided. 

At the time Grant's troops got here only my aunt and 
her two little girls were at home. There was some fightin' 
the day before the battle, and they could hear the firin' 
of the guns, and the roads was just crammin' full of Union 
soldiers. The soldiers scattered out all around my uncle's 
place, and they was in the woods killin' his hogs, shoats, 
and things. My aunt was mighty grieved at that. But 
they was very good to the family and posted a guard at 
the house. 

Just befo' night a negro who was passin' spoke to my 
aunt sayin': "Oh, Miss Sarah! don't stay here. You '11 be 
killed. Go on away." 

She turned to her oldest girl, who was about thirteen, 
and asked, "Who is that?" 

The negro saw that she did n't know him, and he said, 
" I 'm Mr. Vicker's colored man." 

He was an old darky who belonged to a neighbor, but 
had gone away and deserted to the Yankees. Probably he 
cooked for 'em. 

My aunt did n't think she could leave the house and her 
things, and she went about gettin' supper, but they were 
all frightened most to death. The firin' seemed to be very 
near, and the artillery had begun throwin' bumbshells. 
Those shells made a great fuss a-whistlin' like as they came 
over. That was what scared my aunt and her girls so much. 

By and by two shells fell right in front of the house. One 
of 'em burst and tore a great hole in the dirt only about 
two rods from the chimney. The children were cryin': 
"Let's go! We'll be killed!" 



334 Cold Harbor 

"Well, I'll go," my aunt said; "only wait till I get a few 
things." 

So she picked up her money and jewelry and some other 
valuables and made a bundle that she could carry in her 
arms. The soldiers were comin' through the fields every- 
where by that time gettin' out of the way of the Southern- 
ers. My aunt and the girls started and the guard went with 
them. They could all make their steps, and they hurried 
along as fast as they was able. It was getting sort of dusky. 
They went through the woods and by the big millpond 
about a mile to a house and stopped. But the artillery was 
bumbshellin' so hard that in a little while they went to 
the next house. There they stayed over night. 

In the morning they came back home. When they got 
in sight of the house their guard said: "I'll leave you 
now. You're all safe." 

They thanked him, and he went off as fast as he could 
run, for he knew that our men were not far off. After they 
reached the house my aunt noticed that some one had slept 
in her bed. "I don't know who it could be," she said. 

Just then my uncle walked into the room. He'd spent 
the night in the house. He thought they would come back, 
and he'd been watching for 'em. As soon as he saw them 
coming he cut across, and he was settin' behind a worm 
fence close to 'em where they parted from the Yankee 
guard. "I had my gun," he said, "but I would n't have 
killed him for the world after he 'd been so kind to you." 

My uncle had been down in camp in the Chickahominy 
Swamp, and he told how he was cookin' bread there when 
a great big shell come in the fire and threw the bread way 
up yonder. He did n't know where it went. The men that 
was there got their drinkin' water from a crick near by. 



A Man from the Ranks 335 

A dead horse was layin' in the crick, but my uncle said the 
water tasted mighty sweet to 'em. 

He had to join his regiment, and his family refugeed 
again. When they got back the best part of the house 
had been pulled down and used for breastworks. 

A good many families had been run out of their houses 
the same as my uncle's family. There were six ladies with 
their children who had refugeed at my father's house. 
They'd fallen back and left everything and did n't even 
have food to eat. Our company drew three days' rashions, 
and all of us agreed to give the rashions to those suffering 
women. We left the food at my father's and went without 
food ourselves. I've gone hungry for three days many a 
time in the army. 

We were particularly badly off after Richmond was 
evacuated. The commissary issued nothing but raw corn, 
three ears for a day, a ear for each meal. You'd see men 
goin' along the road eatin' the raw corn. If we were in 
camp of a night we might make a fire and parch the corn. 
But Sheridan's men were around and they'd shoot if they 
saw a light. So if any of us started a fire the others would 
shout, "Put that out"; and we'd have to eat our corn raw 
again. 



XLIV 
The Slave Boy ^ 

Nearly all the ol' colored people who can remember the 
war have passed out now. There's only a few left, and 
mostly they got no mo' education than a brickbat. They 
could n't read their own name if they see it. But they can 
talk, yes, sir, they can talk. 

I was quite a boy at the time of that Cold Harbor fight. 
My master was a man named Wylie. He's dead now. He 
had two cooks and my mother was one of 'em. A woman 
by the name of Car'line was the other. One morning 
Master was out in the garden with my mother and four 
of us children pickin' strawberries. It was along after 
breakfast and he was fixin' up some stuff to take to Rich- 
mond. 

By and by my ol' mist'ess come out to the garden. She 
was a great knitter, and she could weave and spin and do 
all such things. People used to make their own cloth then, 
you know, and manufacture their own clothes. That 
mornin' she was makin' a seine for ol' Master to use when 
he went in the swamps to ketch fish. When she come to 
the garden she had in her hand one of the wooden needles 

1 "Uncle Davie" was grubbing up a thorn tree when I met him and 
listened to his recollections of war-time. He was getting gray, but was 
still capable of doing a hard day's work. That he was good-tempered 
and mentally alert was quite evident. A local white youth vouched for 
him as a man who could do anything — even preach. His one failing 
was a liking for liquor, and he would preach one day and get drunk the 
next, or vice versa. 



The Slave Boy 337 

she used in makin' the net. It was two feet long — every 
bit of that. "Mr. Wylie," she said, "don't you hear it 
thunder? You listen to that roarin'." 

The sky was as cle'r as it is now, and he says, "I don't 
see no cloud, but that seems to be thunder or somethin'." 

He stood there listenin' and lookin', and pretty soon he 
says: "I certain think a cloud is risin' somewhere. The 
sun is not as bright as 't was a while ago." 

The weather was hot, yes, sir, and the roads was dry. 
Off in the woods the Northern army was comin', and a 
little breeze was blowin' which carried the dust from the 
feet of the horses and men on ahead of 'em. It looked just 
like smoke, but we did n't know yet what it was all about. 

Presently several men on big black horses appeared at 
the turn of the road. "Hello! Fanny!" ol' Master says to 
ol' Mist'ess, "there 's somethin' goin' on." 

We four children took for the gate. It was a big double 
gate in front of the shop. We dumb up on it, and the men 
went past — bloobity, bloobity, bloobity — as fast as they 
could ride. 

In a short time a great number of men on horseback 
come galloping down the road and through the fields in 
every direction, and there were foot soldiers runnin' and 
carryin' on and tearin' the fences all to pieces and throwin' 
'em out of the way; and they had some of the prettiest, 
shiniest things at their sides — bayonets and swords. 

We children went out in the road to see all we could see, 
and Mother had to run out and get us. We lived in a log 
cabin in Master's yard, and she took us there. She just 
screamed she was so frightened. My ol' mist'ess was wild, 
too, there was such a lot of mens and horses on the place, 
and they had come so sudden, and there was so much 



338 Cold Harbor 

hollerin' and confusion. Most of the niggers that Master 
owned were all lost from each other, and Mist'ess did n't 
want 'em to get killed. She thought too much of us for that. 

Master had cattle and sheep, horses, hogs, and mules, 
but Lord 'a' mercy! those men got nearly all of 'em. That 
was one terrible time! They killed one young mule that 
kicked when they was tryin' to get her out of the stable. 
One of the soldiers shot her, and she fell right in the barn- 
yard in a hole of water and died. 

There was an oV pet sorrel horse out on the green lawn 
in front of the house. She was n't worked any more, and 
she was there grazin'. The soldiers saw she was no good 
for their use, and they knocked her in the head. They 
killed our sheep and shot our hogs and took all our 
hens that they could ketch. They took all the meat 
out of the smokehouse, and all the corn from the barn. 
It was the same on the other farms. They went right 
through the 'munity and took everything. 

Late in the day a lot of 'em encamped over in the woods 
across the road from Master's house. The big wagons 
drawn by four mules had come and brought their tents 
and things. They had drums — bum, bum — and they 
blew horns, and we was all so scared that in the night ol' 
Master's people and the colored people all went to another 
house. Mother lit some taller can'les to light our way 
through the woods. Those ol'-fashioned can'les burned 
almost equal to a lantern. It would take a good wind to 
blow 'em out. We just went through a string of woods 
to another plantation. 

The next day the armies were fightin'. Good Lord! I 
never beared such guns, and we colored people went into 
the cellar of the servants' house at the plantation where 



The Slave Boy 339 

we'd gone. We stayed there the longest time till they 
stopped shootin'. Our oV mist'ess brought us down crack- 
ers and a few things to eat. 

After the battle the Yankees ran down disaway through 
the Chickahominy swamp and every direction, and the 
Rebels pushed off toward Petersburg as hard as they could 
rip. 



XLV 

The Sutler's Lass ^ 

My father was a machinist in Richmond when the war 
began. But everything in a business way came to a stand- 
still and he moved a few miles out of the city to a farm. 
He thought he could make a living there and that he would 
n't be so likely to be forced into the army. Father did n't 
want to be a soldier. He had never shot a gun in his life 
that I know of. He stayed right on the farm and kept out 
of sight, for the recruiting officers were likely to pick up 
any one they found away from home. A good many men 
were so afraid of being conscripted that they spent their 
time loafing and bumming in the woods. 

I had a brother that we thought would have to be a 
soldier. But he was delicate, and Mother said he could n't 
stand army life. Lyin' on the damp ground would kill him. 
So in order to keep him out of the war we made plans for 
his running the blockade and escaping North. He was to go 
to a relative of ours who lived in Jersey City. 

For a while he hid in an old barn six or seven miles from 
our farm waiting for an opportunity to slip through the 
lines. Once I took some food to him there. I had a little 
mule that I rode, and I carried the food tied up in a small 
bundle in front of me. Mother sent some money, too. I 

1 In the passing years she had become a fleshy, hearty old lady. 
While she talked she sat eating supper in the farmhouse that was her 
home. It was a house that stood where there had been some sharp 
fighting, and it was scarred by many a bullet. 



The Sutler's Lass 341 

was allowed to pass the pickets because I had a passport. 
Some of 'em were too ignorant to read, but they 'd take the 
paper and pretend to read it and would n't let on that it 
meant nothing to them. I had no trouble in getting to the 
house on the place where my brother was hid, and I left 
the things I had brought and returned home. 

Three or four other men ran the blockade at the same 
time my brother did. The party paid a man so much to 
take them, and I suppose they had to bribe the pickets 
besides. 

After my brother had gone I was the oldest of the chil- 
dren at home, and I was my mother's girl and my daddy's 
boy. They both depended on me a good deal to help with 
the work and go on errands. 

Our house was in the midst of a recruiting camp. But 
we never was molested. The soldiers were as kind as they 
could be. I think the camp was established there because 
a branch was near at hand where the horses could be 
watered. If ever the troops wanted to prepare for a battle 
down this way they came around in that neighborhood. 
We had the Black Horse Cavalry there and the Hampton 
Legion, and I don't know how many more at one time 
or another. Broke-down horses were sent there, too, and 
taken care of to see if they could be made fit for use 
again. 

Conscripts were constantly arriving in the camp to drill, 
and they appeared very 'umble and crestfallen and looked 
very funny in citizens' clothes going through the tactics of 
an afternoon. Officers were always scouring the country to 
get men for the army, and they could take any one not 
under eighteen or over sixty-five. Toward the end of the 
war it was made lawful to conscript boys of sixteen. They 



342 Cold Harbor 

were wanted for soldiers as soon as they could handle a 
gun. No one was safe from those conscripters. Perhaps 
you would be sitting at the supper table with your family, 
and in would come an officer and take you and one or two 
of your sons if they were old enough; or the officer might 
find you on the road driving your wagon and would make 
you go right along with him. 

We kept a sutler's store in the camp. Our house was 
large, and the store occupied two rooms. So many sol- 
diers came to trade that we locked the doors and served 
them out of the windows. They were camped all around 
right up to the yard. In places where the turf has n't been 
disturbed you can still find the little trenches they dug for 
the water to drip down into from their tent canvas. 

One of my brothers went in a spring wagon regularly to 
Richmond to bring the groceries for the store. We sold 
rice and flour, cakes, fruits, peanuts, and such things as 
that. We was n't allowed to keep liquors. The peanuts we 
sold unroasted. Some people likes 'em that way, but I 
don't care for 'em in the raw state myself. The South 
Car'linians called 'em "goober peas." They bought 'em 
just as fast as we could pass 'em out. 

The officers had their headquarters in the farmhouse 
next to ours, and the troops used to have their dress pa- 
rades in a fine open field on that place. All the neighbors* 
ladies used to come to see the soldiers on dress parade. 
'T was a lovely sight to watch them march and to see the 
officers on horseback. Then, too, there was a band that 
played beautiful music. 

The troops were always coming and going. Sometimes, 
when we went to bed, there 'd be thousands of men in tents 
right around us, and in the night the bugle would call and 



The Sutler's Lass 343 

off they'd go. The next morning we'd get up and not see 
a tent. 

One night they got news of a Yankee raid. Some of the 
officers came to our house. I was asleep, but I woke up and 
went to the window and looked out. I reckon it was ten or 
eleven o'clock. There were three officers at the door with 
Father, and they were whispering because they were 'fraid 
the Yankee scouts might be lurking around. The officers 
wanted Father to show 'em near cuts through the woods 
so their troops could surround the Yankees, but Father was 
new to the country, and he sent 'em to a neighbor who 
could guide 'em better. 

The road was full of infantry. It was late in the fall — a 
cold, clear, moonlight night. The soldiers stepped along 
very regular. I could just see their heads moving. There 
was no talking or jostling. They marched till daylight 
and came to the Yankee camp. But the Yankees had 
heard them approaching and had cut out. It seem like 
the Northern men must have been cooking breakfast and 
just ran off and left everything. Our soldiers were glad to 
get that breakfast, for they were nearly starved to death. 
They rarely did have enough to eat. I know the soldiers 
at the camp around our house were always hungry. We 
could n't raise anything because they would get whatever 
we tried to grow. They took all the poultry and stock in 
the region. It was the same right through the South — 
v/here the soldiers were you could n't keep a thing. If you 
went to headquarters to complain a guard might be sent 
to your house to protect your goods, but he'd take what 
he wanted to hand to those outside. Hunger will make a 
man do anything. If he can't get enough to eat you can't 
blame him if he steals. 



344 Cold Harbor 

Poor fellows! our soldiers were not only starved, man 
and beast, but they did n't have enough clothes. Their 
only way to get good shoes or clothing was to pull 'em off 
from dead Yankees on the battlefields. Toward the last as 
many of 'em wore Yankee uniforms as Confederate. 

But whenever the troops got sudden marching orders 
they left a great deal behind them in the camp. There was 
a sight of waste, especially in the early part of the war. 
Friends sent comforts to the soldiers, and they 'd leave the 
nicest sort of things on the ground. I 've seen 'em dig a hole 
and put all that they could n't carry into that, when they 
were going to start on a march. We picked up a-many a 
hundred pounds of bacon and washed and used it. Some- 
times we'd find half a box of hardtack — big square crack- 
ers as large as your two hands. 

Did you ever think what a soldier carried? First there 
was his knapsack which held a change of apparel. On top 
of that a blanket was double strapped across his back. He 
had a gun and a canteen, and he had a bag of white canvas 
called a haversack that held food and hung under his arm. 
A leather belt with a large buckle was around his body, and 
attached to it was a cap pouch and a cartridge box full of 
cartridges and a bayonet pouch. What do you think of that 
for infantry marching on foot? 

Besides, we had terrible roads here then — all cut to 
pieces by the great amount of traffic and the heavy artillery. 
What made things worse was the rain that fell incessantly 
the whole four years of the war. It looked like it rained 
more those four years than any years since. They say that 
was on account of so much shootin'. There 'd be great gul- 
lies in the roads and some parts became impassable. Teams 
would often travel the byways in order to get along. I can 



The Sutler's Lass 345 

remember how the commissary wagons would go bumpin', 
bumpin' past. There ain't no springs in commissary 
wagons. Four, six, or eight mules were hitched to each 
wagon. The driver had those mules to take care of, and 
sometimes he could n't find anything to feed 'em. 

The teams had to travel those rutted and muddy or 
dusty roads, and so did the soldiers. Often the soldiers' 
feet got so sore and blistered they took off their shoes and 
carried 'em. At night they lay on the ground, and if rain 
fell they waked up in a puddle of water. I 'd prefer suicide 
to a life like that. It 's worse than a brute's life. Then there 
were all those who lost an arm or a leg and went maimed 
and limping the rest of their days. Surely, no one with 
common sense would want to be a soldier. 

We had a big scare at the time of McClellan's raid. 
Mother was a very brave sort of woman, and that was the 
only time I ever saw her frightened. She got so excited her 
hair come down. We owned a cow or two, and when we 
heard that the Yankees were close at hand and advancing 
in our direction. Mother had our colored man and woman 
put the cows in the stable. Presently we saw a young man 
in Confederate uniform coming on a horse as fast as he 
could gallop. He was slim in figure, and his face was as 
white as a sheet. "Oh my mother, my mother!" he was 
saying. "Til never see my mother any more!" 

We were at the back of the house, and he went on out of 
our sight, and then we heard more galloping and saw two 
Yankees right after him. They had big, fine horses, and his 
was only skin and bones, and we were certain they 'd ketch 
him. We supposed he had gone on up the road, but instead 
he had raced into our front yard, turned his horse loose, 
thrown his saddle and bridle out of sight and crawled under 



346 Cold Harbor 

the porch. The Yankees came to the door and said he was 
in the house. We did n't know anything about it, and they 
walked right in and searched, but they did n't find him. 

As soon as they had gone along he crawled out from his 
hiding-place, saddled and bridled his horse, and started off 
in the other direction. But he was hardly out of the yard 
when those Yankees appeared on the road returning. They 
were hot after him at once, and he was only about a hun- 
dred yards ahead. Below the house was a hollow where 
there were tall pine woods with a little undergrowth. He 
slipped off his horse in the hollow, and got in the woods. 
I was sorry for that man. I think he must have been a 
scout or he would n't have been away from his regiment. 
Probably he was safe when he got in the woods, for he 
must have been used to crawling around and keeping out 
of sight when he was trying to get as near the Union line 
as possible. 

One day there was a fight, not very far from where we 
lived, at the Nine Mile Battery. A lot of negro infantry 
with white officers fought on the Yankee side. I saw every 
one of them niggers as they was goin' there, and I reckon 
the column was certainly a half mile in length. I stood 
near the road on an embankment that a Southern battery 
had vacated, and one of the niggers raised up his gun 
and pointed it at me to frighten me. Oh! it was skittish 
times. 

Before the battle began all the people that lived round- 
about were told to vacate their houses. If they did n't 
move they stayed at their own risk. Some houses were 
burnt down. By and by we began to hear cannon, and 
there were shells flyin' over. Me and Mother and the chil- 
dren went down to the crick that ran through our place and 



The Sutler's Lass 347 

lay there on the side of the bank till the cannonading was 
over. The neighbors went down there, too. At the next 
farm was a sick man, and they put him in a cot and took 
him to the shelter of the bank. We had some corn on the 
branch side, and I remember it had got large enough to 
tassel. The cornblades were shattered by powder from 
'exploding shells. We had hitched a cow to a stump, near 
the com, by a long chain so she could graze and she had 
wound the chain around the stump till she could hardly 
move. But if she had been out at the full length of her 
tether she might have been hit by a shell which fell there. 
That was a mean cow. She kicked. Finally she got away 
and wandered into camp, and the soldiers killed her. 

The niggers that I saw passing our place went down to 
the Nine Mile Battery, and the Confederates was waiting 
for them. I don't suppose one of 'em was left to tell the 
tale. If our men found a wounded nigger on the field they 
stuck a bayonet through him, or stood him up and shot 
him. They were mad to have those niggers fighting 'em. 
It would have made me hot — turning against their mas- 
ters who had taken care of and protected them! 

After the battle the dead had to be buried, and our men 
dug trenches and threw in four or five Yankees with a 
nigger on top and shoveled back the dirt. 

Some of the wounded were brought to our house. One 
of 'em died there. He cut his name in the floor where he 
lay. I could make out John, but not his last name. 

Our house was as much as ten mile from Cold Harbor, 
but we heard the infantry go in there at the time of the 
battle. The sound was like a package of pop-crackers. We 
heard the cannon, too. They made the windows rattle and 
shook the ground. It was just like an earthquake. We had 



348 Cold Harbor 

a very large black dog named Smut, and he howled and 
did n't know what was goin' to happen to him. 

A lady friend and I talked of riding over to Cold Harbor 
after the fight ended, but Father said the battlefield was 
not a fit place for females. He and an officer went. They 
rode on horseback and came back the same day. The 
officer brought with him a pair of cavalry boots that would 
come up most to his waist. He pulled 'em off a dead body 
that had begun to decompose, but he put 'em to soak in 
the crick and afterward made a nigger clean 'em out. 

Father was a very sympathetic man, and he said the 
battlefield was a sickening sight. The weather was warm, 
and the stench was almost stifling. I declare! that battle 
was a sad thing. 

There was a Captain Sears who often visited at our 
house, and one Sunday afternoon in April, 1865, he and I 
went for a horseback ride. We stopped at a house to make 
a call and were sitting in the parlor when a courier arrived. 
He was looking for Captain Sears and notified him that 
Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, and Richmond was 
to be evacuated. Of co'se we'd been thinking that Rich- 
mond might go up, but you know, while there's breath 
there's hope, and the news startled and frightened us. Oh, 
my! it was a big surprise, and you bet we galloped home, 
and the captain hurried on to join his regiment. Lor', yes'! 
and I never saw him any more. 

Then the uproar commenced, and Richmond was torn 
all to pieces. The city was burned, and we could see the 
smoke Monday and Tuesday. 

The man I afterward married was in business in Rich- 
mond. I know two of his horses were pressed by Jefferson 
Davis when Davis was escaping. My husband used to 



The Sutler's Lass 349 

curse old Jeff Davis many a time and say he was the worst 
enemy the South had. 

It was n't just horses that my husband lost. He owned 
niggers, and they were freed. He had a lot of Confederate 
bonds, and those didn't amount to shucks, you know. 
Besides, he had a mailbag full of Confederate money. At 
the least calculation he lost over a hundred thousand dol- 
lars. He had a wholesale grocery and liquor store, and that 
and everything in it burned. I don't know how many bar- 
rels of brandy and whiskies and wines he lost. His safe got 
red hot and stayed hot so long that all there was inside 
melted. Oh! he lost a sight — he lost Uke all the world — 
and he mighty near lost his mind. 



XLVI 
The Color Bearer ^ 

When the war began Atlanta was a place of not over seven 
thousand inhabitants. It was in the heart of the Confed- 
eracy, and it was a natural center for gathering and dis- 
tributing supplies. The Federals did n't penetrate to the 
region till toward the end of the war, and until that time 
the people lived very comfortably. In fact, before Sher- 
man came, we never wanted for anything. 

My father went into the army early. At first he was a 
lieutenant, but later he made up a company of his own and 
was its captain. I became a color bearer in his company. 
That was in 1861 when I was thirteen years old, and I was 
the youngest soldier who ever went from Atlanta. 

I used to see lots of fellows leaving here to go to the 
front, and they'd holler and laugh as if they were starting 
off to a picnic. They were new recruits, all fresh then. 
They had n't got a taste of war. Box cars were used for 
transporting the troops, but that did n't trouble 'em. 
Some rode inside and some on top, and they were feeling 
fine. They felt as if they could whip the whole world. 
When they came back it was like a funeral — no hilarity 
then. Some of the dust had been knocked out of 'em, and 
a good many never returned at all. 

Perhaps our greatest excitement in the earlier years of 

^ I spent an evening with him in a pleasant home near the business 
center of the city. Youth was past, but he had as yet robust health and 
an unbent form. 



The Color Bearer 351 

the war was Andrews's Raid in the spring of 1862. I don't 
know much about this man Andrews before that time 
except that he had been teaching school in Kentucky and 
had become a Union spy. His scheme was to have a small 
company of picked men go down into the South nearly 
to Atlanta, steal a locomotive, and then ride back north 
on it, stopping on the way to burn the bridges and wreck 
the railroad as much as possible. The raid was well 
planned, and only a mere chance prevented it from suc- 
ceeding. 

Twenty-four soldiers were selected from some Ohio 
regiments to aid Andrews. The men put on ordinary 
Southern clothes instead of their uniforms and went south 
in small detachments of three or four. When they were 
questioned on the way they said they were Kentuckians 
going to join the Confederate army. Nineteen of the sol- 
diers succeeded in reporting to Andrews at Marietta, about 
twenty-five miles north of Atlanta. 

On Saturday, April 12, the adventurers bought tickets 
for various places in the direction of Chattanooga and got 
on an early north-bound train. The day was chilly and 
rainy. After a ride of eight miles they reached Big Shanty, 
where a stop was made for breakfast. The train crew and 
all the passengers, except those twenty raiders, flocked into 
the hotel and left the train unguarded. Then Andrews and 
his men got busy and uncoupled the locomotive, the tender, 
and three box cars from the rest of the train. Sixteen of 
the men climbed into the rear car of the front section of the 
train, and their leader and the three other men got into 
the locomotive car. Big Shanty was a place where Con- 
federate soldiers rendezvoused. Plenty of 'em were around, 
and a sentinel stood not a dozen feet from the locomotive 



352 Atlanta 

watching proceedings, but before any of 'em made up their 
minds to interfere the train started. 

Among the men gathered about the hotel dining-tables 
was Captain Fuller and the locomotive engineer and my 
brother-in-law. A commotion outside attracted their 
attention and they rushed forth to find that a bunch of 
strangers had gone off with a part of the train. At once 
they started running along the track in an attempt to over- 
take the raiders. But of course that was hopeless. They 
kept on for about a mile and got to the next station. There 
they secured a hand-car and continued to press on. That 
pursuit was a thing Andrews had n't calculated on, and 
really it was ridiculous — three men on a hand-car chasing 
twenty men on a train. 

The raiders were handicapped by the fact that there 
was only a single track. They had to meet two passenger 
trains and a freight, and it was therefore necessary to run 
according to time-table. Besides, they were obliged to 
make stops to get wood and water for the locomotive, 
and to cut the telegraph wires beyond each station lest 
word should be sent on ahead to stop them. When they 
halted at a station they explained that they were going 
with a special powder train to the Confederate army at 
Corinth. 

Once they tore up the track and loaded a lot of ties into 
one of the box cars to be used in bridge burning. Their 
most serious delay was at Kingston where they had to make 
a long wait for a regular passenger train from the north 
and two extras. 

Meanwhile their pursuers on the hand-car had come to 
where the raiders had torn up the track and were thrown 
down an embankment into a ditch. But no bones were 



The Color Bearer 353 

broken and they got the hand-car back on the rails and 
proceeded with more caution. 

Presently they came to a station where they found a 
locomotive with the steam up, and they hastily loaded it 
with soldiers who were there and renewed the chase. They 
reached Kingston only four minutes after the raiders had 
gone. Here they shifted to another locomotive and took 
along one car with about forty men aboard. But they had 
to abandon their train when they came to a place where 
the raiders had broken a rail. They then hurried along on 
foot until they got a fresh locomotive from the second of 
the two regular passenger trains that the raiders had been 
obliged to meet. 

Soon they were right on the heels of the fugitives who 
were still obliged to stop after passing each station to cut 
the wires. They followed them so closely that they often 
had the raiders' locomotive in sight. The country was 
hilly, and the railroad was nothing but a snake in its wind- 
ing, and when a curve took the stolen train out of view 
they could usually still see the smoke of its locomotive. 

The raiders dropped off ties and put all sorts of obstruc- 
tions on the track but did not succeed in stopping their 
pursuers. At last they approached a long covered bridge, 
and they set fire to their rear box car and left it in the bridge 
while they kept on. But before the bridge was seriously 
harmed the pursuers arrived and pushed right into the 
smoke with their locomotive and shoved the burning car 
before them to the next side-track. 

Now, after making a run of ninety miles, the raiders were 
without fuel for their engine, and there was nothing to do 
but abandon it. They scattered in the swamps, but men 
gathered from every direction to chase 'em. Some of them 



354 Atlanta 

were soon captured. Others contrived to keep their free- 
dom for several days and got away quite a distance. But 
eventually every man was caught, and also two of the 
original party who had failed to make connections with 
Andrews at Marietta. 

If the daring undertal^ing had been successful it would 
have seriously disturbed traffic and cut off the usual means 
of getting supplies to our army in Tennessee. That railroad 
was the only one out of the state to the north. The raid 
was certainly one of the most thrilling incidents of the war. 

Eight of the captives were tried by court-martial. They 
were condemned as spies and hung here in Atlanta. I was 
at home when Andrews was executed. The procession 
passed our house, and I sat on one of our gateposts and 
watched it go along the street. Andrews was sitting in a 
big, old-fashioned family carriage drawn by two horses. 
The sides were open, and I could see him on the back seat. 
His face was very pale. He had long, black whiskers and 
very black hair. Beside him sat a guard, and on the other 
seat, facing him, was a minister. The driver sat out in 
front. A squad of soldiers marched ahead, and on each side 
of the carriage were several more, and a company of 'em 
followed behind. Then came quite a crowd of people, some 
on foot, some in carriages, and some on horseback. They 
were all very quiet. It was a serious occasion. 

My sister, who was standing at our gate, always said 
that was one of the saddest days she ever spent in her life. 
It seemed to her that a depression or gloom had settled 
over the city. She first realized at that time the horrors of 
war. Until then she had seen only our own soldiers here, 
and though there were army hospitals, very few wounded 
men had as yet been sent to them from the front. 



The Color Bearer 355 

The hanging was to be public, and the crowd wanted to 
see it. A good many boys were going along, and I jumped 
down off the gatepost and fell into line in company with 
one of the boys I knew. 

Andrews was taken to the dense woods on the edge of the 
city where was a hurriedly arranged gallows. When they 
were ready to hang him they found they had forgotten to 
provide the black bag which it was customary to put over 
the condemned man's head on such occasions, but Andrews 
asked to just have a pocket handkerchief tied about his 
eyes. He was very courageous to the end. Some man in the 
crowd furnished a handkerchief. It was quickly adjusted, 
and the hanging followed. The prisoner, however, was a 
very tall, slim man, and his feet struck the ground. That 
would n't do, and the guards pulled off his shoes. Still his 
feet touched, and the officer in charge dug a hole under 'em. 
The body was taken down presently, put in a board coffin, 
and buried where a big pine tree had blown over. The tree 
roots were canted up ten feet high with the clay adhering 
to 'em, and they 'd left a soft place where it was easy to dig 
the grave. 

Andrews' shoes were cut up for relics. I brought home 
one of the pieces, and also a piece of the cord that bound 
his hands. I was quite elated to be the possessor of such 
prizes. When I reached home I ran in and said, "Ma, 
I've got a piece of Andrews' shoe." 

"Take it out of the house," she ordered. She wasn't 
stuck on that kind of relics. 

For some time afterward throngs of people were going 
out to see the place where the raider was hung and buried. 
The very next week a young man was standing over the 
grave, and he stuck his walking-stick down into the earth. 



356 Atlanta 

A hissing sound came up the hole, and the young man 
threw a fit and had to be carried home. The body stayed 
there twenty-five years. Then it was removed to the 
Federal cemetery at Chattanooga. 

The other condemned raiders were hung all together 
very quietly not long after Andrews had been disposed of. 
Only a few were present at the hanging except the mihtary. 
It was n't an entire success. Some nooses had been hitched 
to a beam, and two of the ropes broke, but the guards tied 
'em together and dropped the men again. 

The next year another execution stirred us up here. A 
man who belonged to the Confederate army deserted and 
returned to his home region up in North Georgia and went 
to bushwhacking. The fellow had a regular organized 
gang and made a business of stealing cattle, robbing 
houses, and murdering. He committed so many depreda- 
tions that the authorities arrested him, and he was brought 
to Atlanta, tried, and sentenced to be shot. They had an 
old dray at the jail, and on the appointed day he rode in 
that, sitting on his coffin, to a grove in what is now a busy 
part of the city. Just cheap little houses were scattered 
about there then. They confined him to a big pine tree, 
and a squad of men stood and fired their guns at him. 
His relatives carried off his body to North Georgia. I 
believe he was a prominent man up there. 

About the first of May, 1864, Sherman began to move 
down this way from Chattanooga, and a great many people 
whose homes were in the region he was invading refugeed 
here on the railroad or came in wagons. There was nothing 
but excitement and sensations from then on. One battle 
followed another, and after each fight every train that caroe 
in brought wounded to be cared for. The ladies organized 




A HOSPITAL VIvSITOR 



The Color Bearer 357 

relief societies and took turns in going to the different hos- 
pitals to distribute food. My younger brother, who was a 
great big chunk of a boy, used to go with Mother to help 
carry the heavy baskets. They took soup, coffee, sand- 
wiches, pies, cakes — everything. 

I was in a cavalry regiment, which at that time was 
campaigning in Virginia, but in the early summer my horse 
was killed, and I returned home to get a new one. I came 
by train. It was slow traveling. We spent every night on a 
siding to leave the main track clear for the trains that were 
carrying troops to the front, and for the work trains loaded 
with darkies going to dig trenches and throw up dirt for 
breastworks. 

Whenever our train stopped at any station the ladies in 
the neighborhood were sure to be on hand with pies and 
other good things to eat. There 'd always be a table waiting. 

I reached home and found the family anxious to refugee. 
So I went down in middle Georgia and looked around for a 
house that we could rent. After a while I ran across a 
beautiful place that just suited me. The owner was a man 
who was playin' out of the army. At first he thought I was 
an enrolling officer, and when I called he was in bed with a 
big cabbage leaf on his head. A cabbage leaf with vinegar 
on it applied in that way was an old remedy for the neural- 
gia and the headache. 

The man recovered at once when he learned what I was 
after. He got up and was very sociable and gave me a 
drink of whiskey. I stayed to supper and feasted on fried 
chicken, corn-muffins, milk, and butter. He agreed to rent 
the house for a year at a hundred dollars a month and I paid 
him five hundred dollars in cash and took his receipt. 

As soon as I got back home we prepared to move. 



358 Atlanta 

Atlanta was evidently doomed. The invaders had fifteen 
men to our one, and the place had no chance whatever. 
We felt that the Southern cause was lost. But I '11 tell you 
when I first decided that the South would eventually be 
beaten — it was when the Yankees began to get troops 
from Europe by paying 'em five hundred dollars bounty. 
Lots of those fellows in your army could n't speak a word 
of English. But we fought on. Not another nation on 
earth could have stood what the South did. The fact of it is 
that the Rebels got hungry, and when a man's hungry he '11 
fight. 

At the time we refugeed, Father was with us on a leave 
of absence, and as he was an army officer, he was able to 
get government wagons for our use. They were old schooner 
wagons that dipped in the middle and had bows above with 
canvas over 'em. Each wagon was drawn by four or six 
mules and had two soldiers detailed to it. The left wheel 
mule was saddled, and a man rode on it. He had a check 
line that went to the right wheel mule and a long line to 
the left front mule, and he guided the team with those lines. 
A steady pull meant to go to the right and one or more 
jerks to go to the left. If horses or oxen had been hitched 
to the wagons we would have driven 'em in the same 
way. 

I had a very large bay horse hitched to a lighter wagon 
that we loaded with provisions. There was meat and flour, 
and a sack of coffee and a sack of rice and the like of that, 
and a keg of whiskey. Whiskey was better than money 
then. A quart of it in the latter part of the war would sell 
for one hundred dollars in Confederate money. 

Of course, we could n't carry everything, but we took 
along most of our best carpets and rugs, some feather beds. 



The Color Bearer 359 

our piano, and our set of china. We left our sewing- 
machine — and at that time sewing-machines were n't 
very plentiful — and we left a lot of flour. There was 
enough flour to fill two of the house rooms that were each 
sixteen feet square. It was n't just for our own family. We 
owned negroes and had to feed them, and we'd bought up 
the flour to be prepared for hard times. There was plenty 
of bacon in the house, too — bacon that was made from 
our own hogs. 

My father had a distillery on the edge of the town, and I 
went out to it just before we started. We kept our hogs 
there and fed 'em on the still slop. I counted eighty in the 
pen. We did n't bring 'em away and the soldiers got 'em. 
The shells were falling around there when I drove off. 

We left a nigger man in charge of our house. His name 
was Ike. My mother considered him her most reliable 
servant, and as we were going about the house deciding 
what to take and what not to take she would point out one 
thing after another and say: "Leave that here. Ike can 
take care of it." 

"Yes," Ike would respond, "leave everything to me. 
I '11 take care of this whole house. Don't you worry about 
anything." 

Pa was a hustler and a man of excellent judgment. He 
looked ahead and calculated what was coming with such 
accuracy that he left on the last train to go out of the city 
and came back on the first, eleven months later. All of the 
family except me were on that last train which started at 
about one o'clock in the afternoon of July 17th. It was 
believed that the track had been damaged by the enemy 
and they did n't know what minute the train was going to 
be ditched, or when it might run off into the river beside 



360 Atlanta 

which they traveled a part of the time. The danger was 
not altogether imaginary, for after two or three hours they 
came to where the track had been so torn up by a Yankee 
raiding party that they had to wait till after midnight 
while it was being repaired. 

The weather was awful hot — it was a hot year anyway 
— and there was very little water on the train. The cars 
were jammed full so that many of the people had to stand. 
A part of the train was made up of passenger coaches and 
a part of box cars. But the refugees were thankful to get 
any kind of a conveyance, and they regarded a box car 
about the same as we regard a Pullman now. It was one 
of those cars that my folks were on. Some slats were 
knocked out to let in air and light. 

The passengers were afraid to get off during that long 
wait lest the train should start on and leave them. It 
would have been a relief to walk up and down the track for 
a little exercise, but the uncertainty as to when the train 
would resume its journey, and the fancy that the Yankees 
might pounce on them, deterred the refugees from ventur- 
ing. They were looking all the time for something in the 
rear to develop or something in the front to happen. It 
seemed to them that the enemy might let in on 'em at any 
time. My sister says that the weather and the anxiety and 
the hardships of the journey had made her the sickest 
human that ever was, but there she stayed right on the 
crowded car until the track was repaired and the train 
moved on. 

I went with the wagons, and I had two of our niggers 
with me on my vehicle. One of 'em left the second night 
out. While I was asleep in our camp by the roadside, he 
took a couple of blankets and walked off. I never saw him 



The Color Bearer 361 

afterward. Well, I did n't care. I would n't have gone 
fifty yards to look for him. 

We had put Ike in charge at our residence, but no sooner 
were we gone than he began to sell off our belongings. He 
disposed of a great many valuable things for whatever he 
could get. 

However, as a general thing, the niggers could be trusted 
then where you could n't trust 'em now. Father would 
leave his children in their care with no fear at all. They 
were loyal to their masters and would even fight for 'em. 
They'd steal a few eggs and take a chicken occasionally, 
but such stealing was n't counted against 'em. That was 
all right. We expected it. 

Ike was one of the few who were unfaithful. He had 
things his own way until after the city had been captured, 
when he one day told some Yankees he would take them 
out to a place in the woods and show them where a lot of 
money was buried. They went with him, but ran into a 
troop of Confederate soldiers. Most of 'em were captured. 
Ike and a few others escaped. The Yankees who got away 
thought Ike had led 'em into a trap, and they hung him to 
a big post-oak tree. I was wholly ignorant as to his fate 
until I came home after the war. Then one of the niggers 
told me. They all know about each other. 

Some of the townspeople did n't refugee, but were in the 
place when the battle of Atlanta was fought on its southern 
outskirts. There was a bombardment which lasted a con- 
siderable number of days, and all who were able to do so 
dug a hole to accommodate their families. The niggers did 
the bulk of the digging, but the white people helped, and 
sometimes the soldiers helped, too. 

There was fighting right along roundabout until Sher- 



362 Atlanta 

man captured the city on September 1st. He was here for 
six weeks. Practically all the inhabitants who had hitherto 
remained were sent away, and Atlanta became simply a 
military center. The soldiers tore things to pieces a good 
deal, for they took anything they could get their hands on 
that would be of use in fixing up their camp. 

When they started on their raid down through the state 
they set the town on fire. Not much was left except ashes 
and brick. The business part was all gone, and the few 
buildings that escaped the fire were nearly all damaged by 
shells. Our house was large and roomy, and some general 
used it for headquarters. It was n't burned, but every- 
thing we left in it was gone at the time we came back. 

After Ike had been disposed of, some woman had taken 
possession and claimed that the house was hers. When 
the people of the city were ordered to leave they were 
allowed to choose which way they 'd go — north or south. 
If they went north they were given free transportation with 
their baggage. The woman in our house said she'd go up 
to Kentucky, and she took our mahogany furniture with 
her. The soldiers loaded it onto government wagons and 
carried it across the river on the ferry to the railroad. At 
the close of the war Father went up to Kentucky to try to 
get it, but affairs were very much unsettled, proving his 
claim was not easy, and he accomplished nothing. 

Sherman made a clean sweep of everything in this 
region so that for quite a while afterward it was almost 
impossible to get supplies of any sort. Prices were way out 
of sight. Another soldier and I paid ten dollars for five 
dozen eggs. We made one meal of 'em. Dave e't twenty- 
eight, and I e't thirty-two. But bear in mind that we 
had n't eaten for three days except a few hardtack crack- 



The Color Bearer 363 

ers. What we did was nothing remarkable in those times. 
I 've seen a Rebel soldier draw two days' rashions, and as 
soon as he could cook what needed cooking he'd sit down 
and eat all he'd drawn. Well, you know, he was empty 
down to his feet, and he wanted to make sure of what was 
in sight. 

Prices were at their highest when the Confederacy was 
about to go up. My sister tells of riding on a public 
coach and stopping in a town to buy a fine-tooth comb. 
There were soldiers riding on the coach, and they were full 
of body lice. She felt like the lice were all over her and 
thought she must get a fine-tooth comb, no matter what 
it cost. She paid thirty dollars for one, and she paid 
seventy-two dollars for a pair of slippers. 

The last piece of tobacco I bought in war-time was a 
half plug for ten dollars. I remember that as if it was 
yesterday. It took twenty-seven hundred dollars to buy 
a hundred pounds of sugar and seventeen hundred dollars 
to buy a hundred pounds of salt. Other things cost in 
proportion, though there was n't many other things to 
proportion, to tell the truth. 

In the final days of the war I was in a town one evening, 
and a cavalryman stopped his horse in front of where I 
was standing and asked me to get him some peanuts. I 
got a little sackful — possibly a quart — and he gave a 
thousand dollar bond for 'em. The Confederate money was 
soon no good at all. Several thousand dollars were blowing 
around our backyard. Pa had a satchel and a trunk full. 
There was forty-seven thousand dollars to the best of my 
recollection, and the children took the money and played 
with it. 



XLVII 

The Wife of an Army Cook ^ 

My husband was in the army. He went off in April, 1862. 
Luckily he was a cook and nurse and so did n't run the 
risk of being shot that the soldiers did. Toward the end 
of the year he came home on a furlough and stayed six 
months. Then he returned to the army, and a full year 
passed before he was home again. That time he came on a 
Friday and left the next Sunday evening, and he was n't 
back any more till the end of the war. 

We had a fifty-four acre farm, five or six miles north of 
the city, on Peach Tree Creek. I was left on the farm 
with three children. They were little bits of things. The 
youngest was five months old when the war began. There 
was a slave man on the place, and a good one. If it had n't 
been for him I don't know what I would have done. That 
colored man stuck to me till the year after the sur- 
render. 

Usually we had an extra hand that we hired. We raised 
corn and potatoes and wheat and everything else. The 
soldiers bought early vegetables of us, such as radishes, 
lettuce, and peas. We had sixty hogs and six cows, and we 
had chickens all over the place. 

When the Yankees come in here in 1864 our wheat was 

* She wore spectacles, and she was stout and matronly, but her hair 
was dark, and though in years she was old she was not so in appearance. 
I visited with her on the porch of her humble home on the outskirt? of 
Atlanta. 



The Wife of an Army Cook 365 

nearly ripe and stood as high as my head. There was a big 
field of it — ten or fifteen acres. Wheat gets ripe here by 
the middle of June, and the Yankees must have come 
earlier than that. They turned their horses right into the 
field, and there was nothing left worth harvesting. 

A few weeks later a battle was fought on my place, but I 
got away at the very start of it. I refugeed to Atlanta with 
what two mules could draw on a wagon. That was all I 
saved. 

The first I knew of serious danger was one evening just 
about sundown when I was getting supper ready. The 
Confederates were retreating toward Atlanta and carrying 
the cannons in, and I decided that was the place for me, 
top. 

My slave man and I hurried to load a wagon. I threw a 
sheet on the floor and put on it what clothes it would hold 
and tied it up. We carried that out to the wagon, and the 
feather bed I lay on, and a right smart of provisions. I 
carried all the provisions that were on the place. If I had 
n't I'd have seen tight times. There was some corn 
meal and flour and syrup, and I robbed the bees and added 
the honey to the load. We had seventy or eighty bee 
gums — some of them boxes made of planks and others 
sections of hollow logs. When we found a good hollow tree 
we 'd saw off a gum or two. 

We never started to town till nine o'clock that night. 
The Confederates were digging rifle pits and battle trenches 
near our house when we left. It was a rough country road 
that we had to travel, and we were obliged to drive out 
often to the side of it to give the cannons a chance to pass. 
They came in a hurry, and the horses were galloping. The 
moon was shining, and that helped us to see where we were 



366 Atlanta 

going. A part of the way I walked and a part of the way I 
rode. The children slept up on top of the feather bed. I 
had them fixed so they would n't fall off. 

When we reached Atlanta the houses were all lit up and 
everybody was frightened, but there was no turmoil. My 
father was an army surgeon. He lived in Atlanta and had 
charge of the hospitals. I went to his house and slept that 
night. 

The next morning, just at daylight, the colored man and 
I got into the wagon to return to the farm and fetch 
another load, but when we were nearly there we were 
stopped by the Confederate picket line and told that every- 
thing on our place was destroyed. There were two houses 
— a nice large house with six rooms in it, and a little two- 
room house right adjoining. The soldiers had torn 'em 
both down to make a bridge so as to bring their cannons 
across the creek. 

That same day I moved from my father's house into 
another from which the people had refugeed. Early one 
afternoon, a day or two later, we heard firing south of the 
town. I ran out to see what was going on, and the spent 
bullets dropped all around me like hail. The Battle of 
Atlanta was being fought. 

It was after I refugeed that the first shells fell in the 
town, and the shelling continued at intervals for a week 
or more. The enemy would throw their shells around for 
perhaps a couple of hours and stop, and then, when you 
least expected it, would commence shelling again. Some- 
times we'd hear the boom of a cannon in the night and see 
a shell coming up like a big red star. The first day and 
night of the bombardment twenty-four shells fell close 
around the house I was in. One rolled under the step. 



The Wife of an Army Cook 367 

They were everywhere. The house had no cellar that I 
could go into for shelter, and I just sat there. 

The people flocked in from the country around. Women 
would come with dough all over their arms. They'd been 
working and had just left everything in their hurry. They 
had to huddle in anywhere they could get after they 
reached Atlanta. Oh Lor', yes! Right across the street from 
the place where I made my home was a two-story house 
that had been empty. They crowded in there, and among 
the rest was a lady who had a young nursing child. A shell 
come in the house and took that child's face off. Then it 
went through the bed and the floor and out the side of the 
house, and buried itself in the ground. 

Near by lived a man who built a shed for a shelter. He 
fixed it up so it was a sort of room for his family, and 
around it he piled bales of cotton. You see, a shell won't 
go through a bale of cotton. I spent one night in that 
shed. 

Once, when I was just leaving my house, a shell buried 
itself right at my feet. It did n't explode. If it had I 
never 'd 'a' known what killed me. 

Another time I was going to the post office. A courier 
had come with letters. It had been a long time since I had 
heard from the front, and I was anxious to find out whether 
there was any mail from my husband. Six mules hitched 
to an army wagon were plodding along the street. A shell 
bursted up in the sky — just splashed and went all to 
pieces with a noise like a clap of thunder. One piece went 
right through the body of one of the mules and killed it. 
Men on horseback who were on the street helped hold the 
other mules, and the wagon men adjusted their harness and 
went on and left the dead mule lying there. A piece of the 



368 Atlanta 

shell struck my dress. It had a sharp edge and tore a slit 
through my skirt. 

One day my father and several ladies and myself went 
up in the cupola of the medical college. We carried a spy- 
glass to look off on the country around. 1 had a little white 
scarf about my shoulders. That made me conspicuous, and 
the Yankees saw us. They sent a shell that just did glance 
on the tin roof of the cupola and left a dent. The shell only 
missed us by half a yard. We did n't stay up there. We 
come down. 

After Atlanta had surrendered the Yankees camped in 
the town. One of our doctors had gone with a hospital 
down forty or fifty miles to a little place called Milner. I 
sent my negro man there with my team, and the doctor 
was to feed the two mules for the use of 'em. 

The Yankees ordered all the Confederates to move out of 
town. I declared I would n't go, but I was such a Rebel 
they refused to let me stay. They just took my things, put 
'em in a wagon, and started for the railroad with 'em. I 
followed the wagon on foot and carried my youngest child. 
When we got to the depot they asked me whether I pre- 
ferred to go north or south. I said I'd go south where I 
might find some gentlemen. 

Then they put me and my children and what little 
plunder I had into a slatted cattle car. We rode in that 
dirty, odorous car to Milner, and there they put me off and 
set my things down side of the railroad. The hospital was 
in sight near by. It was just a shed open at each end. 
Two doctors were in charge. They lived in a two-room 
house. Each man had a room for himself and his family. 
Back in Atlanta they had nice houses, but they'd been 
obliged to leave everything just like the rest of us. 



The Wife of an Army Cook 369 

My negro cleaned out the smokehouse, and I had to Hve 
in that for nearly a week. It was made of logs, and it was 
barely large enough for us to have a bed inside. Of course 
it smelt smoky, but it was better than no shelter at all. 

The doctors soon left and took with 'em all their patients 
who were able to be moved. Twenty-five wounded men re- 
mained. The doctors said they would all die and they left 
twenty-five coffins to bury 'em in. My father was a 
physician, and I knew how to nurse and how to give medi- 
cine and dress wounds, and I knew how to cook. The 
doctors left two men to help me, and we saved all those 
wounded men but one. That one had lost a leg and was 
pretty weak. He took typhoid and died. 

As soon as the others had all gone I went back to 
Atlanta. That was in January. My father's house had 
been spared. He was a Mason, and that helped protect his 
property. Besides, there were as many Yankees as Con- 
federates under his care in the hospitals, and he was 
respected. 

A few months later the war ended and my husband 
come back. He had only what he had on, and I did n't have 
much more. We returned to our farm and built a little 
log cabin. I had saved our two mules, and we made a crop, 
but we had nothing to sell until late in the fall. However, 
when things ripened we found everybody eager to buy, 
food was so scarce, though they did n't have much money 
to pay us. 

At any rate we got a start, and gradually we recovered 
from the setback caused by the war. 



/ 



XLVIII 

The Planter^ 

I've passed my eighty-sixth birthday — so how old am I? 
That's a question I've asked a good many times, and even 
college presidents and educated men are apt to answer it 
wrong. I 'm eighty-five. My first birthday was when I was 
born. 

I've always lived in this vicinity a few miles north of 
Atlanta. At the time of the war I was in the farming and 
milling business. My house was a five-room framed build- 
ing with two chimleys, one outside and one inside. There 
were four sets of waterwheels in my mill, and I ground the 
wheat and corn that were brought by customers, and I 
bought grain and sold flour and meal. I had some eight 
hundred acres of land, and cotton was the main crop that 
I raised. 

My habits and opinions have always been somewhat 
different from those of the mass of the people. I don't drink 
and I don't smoke. I tried smoking once. That was 
when I was sixteen or eighteen years of age, I should say, 
and felt I was a man. Tobacco was raised in this country, 
and we boys made some cigars. I smoked half a one. It 

1 He was an energetic, philosophic old man with a craggy face and a 
bald head. His mind rambled somewhat, but he still had a good grip 
on essentials. His home, where I called on him, was a few miles north 
of Atlanta. It was a large and modem country dwelling which gave 
evidence of taste and wealth. The day was one of summer heat and 
buzzing flies, and we sat and talked on the generous gallery. 



The Planter 371 

nearly killed me, and I gave up smoking. Another thing 
that influenced me was the fact that my mother did n't 
like for us to get into doubtful habits. Her foreparents 
came from Scotland, and she was pretty strict in her 
views. As I look at things now I would n't use liquor and 
tobacco even if they were harmless. Indeed, I never have 
felt able to buy what does n't do any good. 

I was opposed to the war. I gave a good deal of thought 
to it before our people went into it, and the extreme ones 
looked on my reluctance to resort to war as rather cow- 
ardice. The popular idol was Jefferson Davis. He was an 
honest, conscientious. Christian man. I've seen him and 
been with him, and personally I liked him, but I had a 
much higher opinion of Stephens, the Confederate vice- 
president, as a statesman. 

I 'm the only person in the state of Georgia who went so 
far as to spend a thousand dollars to prevent the war. 
Some others and myself proposed a gradual emancipation 
of the slaves that would free them all by the end of the 
century. The owners were to receive part compensation 
from the government. We sent men to see what arrange- 
ments could be made for securing a great tract of country 
in northern Texas, where the free negroes could be colo- 
nized. The plan was favored by Everett of Massachusetts 
and by other leading men North and South, but we did n't 
get it much before the public. It was to be urged before our 
state convention that met to decide what course Georgia 
would take in the crisis. However, it was never presented. 
Sentiment was too strong for secession among the politi- 
cians; and yet I'm satisfied that the mass of the people 
favored the Union. I did, but I had been outvoted, and I 
was as true to my Confederate state as any man in it. I 



372 Atlanta 

felt that my duty was to go with the people here in the 
course they'd chosen, or get out of the country. 

I told the boys that left this locahty for the front that as 
long as I was able their famihes should n't suffer. I fur- 
nished their home folks with something to eat when they 
were in need and aided the sick. People would come long 
distances to get supplies at my mill. There was lack of 
food here, and lack of clothing, and lack of comforts of all 
sorts, but I never in my life heard a lady complaining of 
the hardships she had to endure. We don't realize ordi- 
narily how little a person can live on. Lots of us found out 
in war-time. I knew a lady of wealthy parents who had n't 
a pair of shoes to wear. She lived eight miles from my 
mill, and she walked there toting forty pounds of corn. 
After the corn was ground she walked home with the meal. 

One night, early in the war, the mill was burnt. I'd 
raised six or seven hundred bushels of wheat that year, and 
I'd bought fifteen hundred bushels of corn in the upper 
part of the state. I was n't burnt out until I'd just got 
that all in. I built up immediately but the mill gradually 
grew less profitable. We had n't the grain in the country 
to grind, and families lived with more economy as the war 
progressed. 

The Yankees come here about the first of June, 1864. I 
saw very little of them because I had refugeed with my 
family. We moved down about a hundred miles to the 
central part of the state. Some of our things we carried on 
wagons, but the family rode in a carryall. The shift did n't 
prove to be any great gain, for later the Yankees raided 
down there and burnt all I had. 

I was purchasing agent for the railroad, and I traveled 
about to a good many places. At the time of the Battle of 



The Plantei 373 

Atlanta I was living in a wagon f ve miles below the city 
at what had been my father's old homestead. In fact, the 
battle was fought on land I wi^nst owned. I knew the 
country, and during the fighting I was out where I could 
act as a pilot for our troops, .li'or instance, if an officer 
asked me where a certain spot was I told him how to go 
the quickest and shortest way. There was continuous fir- 
ing for hours. Some of the fighting was done in the wood- 
land. That was where the Union General McPherson was 
killed. He was riding along a road and come to where it 
forked. Right there some one had cut down a tree that had 
bees in it, and it had fallen so it entirely blocked the fork 
of the road that turned to the right, which McPherson 
would naturally have taken. He went a hundred yards on 
the other fork and was shot down. 

I was on the battlefield after the fighting was over. The 
Federals had been driven back from a portion of the field 
and had left a good many wounded there. I helped gather 
them up. They were taken down to a church hospital. 

In December I came back to my plantation. The 
Yankees had gone to Savannah, firing the buildings and 
destroying stock of all kinds as they went. They said the 
object of this devastation was to impoverish the South and 
make further resistance impossible. I believe the soldiers 
were ordered to burn only barns, but they were n't very 
discriminating, and most of the dwellings were destroyed, 
too. 

On my place here I found my house, though with com- 
paratively little in it. There had been twenty buildings on 
my premises, and the raiders were kind enough to leave me 
two. Those two were my dwelling and a smokehouse. Not 
another house was standing on the road between Atlanta 



374 Atlanta 

and Marietta, a score of miles to the north. A lot of the 
soldiers had a camp nea ' here. It covered five acres. They 
were there till cool weather late in the fall season, and they 
tore a good many build jigs to pieces to use in making 
shacks to shelter them in the camp, and to make bunks 
to lie on. If they needed anything they took it. In a few 
instances they were very insulting to some of the local 
families, but as a rule they did n't do anything but what 
soldiers would do for their o vn benefit. When they started 
to leave they burnt everything up in their camp that they 
did n't take along. 

They had been instructed to destroy the railroad as 
they came down from the north, and they had piled up the 
ties, set fire to them, and thrown the iron rails onto the 
fires. The middle part of the rail would lie on the pile of 
burning ties, and when it got red hot the soldiers took the 
rail and gave it a twist around a tree. Then the rail could 
n't be used again. Some of the rails got so hot on the fires 
that they curved themselves. 

When I got back here not a person within twenty miles 
had a bushel of corn so far as we knew, and I went to 
Macon and bought some, and I brought back a cow and 
four hogs. I had more hogs then than any of my neighbors. 

Spring come and the war ended. Some of the cowardly 
scamps who got up the racket tried to keep it up, but the 
brave soldiers buried any feeling they had. They con- 
sidered that the issues on which the war had been fought 
were settled. 



XLIX 

The Machinist's Daughter^ 

Here I am in this little old house right in the heart of 
Atlanta, and I was living in this same house all through the 
war, but it was a new house then. It was built about 1858, 
and the work was all done by slavery labor. These brick 
walls are very thick and substantial, and the house seemed 
a pretty fine one fifty years ago, though a two-story house 
like this here now looks very small and humble. 

Atlanta was not much of a town then. It was a right 
smart woodsy place. I was a little girl in war-time, but 
even when I got to be a great big girl there were woods 
two blocks from here, and I would go over to 'em and cut 
Christmas trees. Yes, Atlanta was a country place and 
did n't begin to grow fast until some years after the war. 
People used to turn their cows out, and the cows would graze 
around where they pleased all day and come back at night. 

My father was a railroad machinist, and he was away 
from home most of the time during the war. Mother took 
care of our home place. There were only two of us children 
— me and my brother who was five years older. We had 
two cows and some hogs and a lot of chickens. After the 
soldiers got around we had to keep our cows up. We 
would n't let 'em out till ten or eleven o'clock in the morn- 

^ I was invited into the plain little parlor of a small brick house that 
lingered among the big buildings of the rapidly-growing city. There 
I spent an hour or more with my informant, a pleasant, chatty woman 
of middle age. 



376 Atlanta 

ing and they would n't go far. If they did n't come in 
tolerable soon my brother would go after 'em. When there 
was kind of a rough crowd around so we were anyways 
scared about the cows we would n't let 'em out at all. Our 
hogs were kept in a pen. 

The house lot here measured one hundred by two hun- 
dred feet, and most of it was a garden. Mother understood 
planting and cultivating things, and she tended the 
garden herself. 

Father was with us a little while when the Yankee army 
began to close in around the town. He dug a great hole in 
the back yard and made a bumbproof . It was broad and 
it was right deep. He got some crossties from the railroad 
to use in making the roof. He laid a row of 'em side by 
side and put another row on top laid the other way, and 
then he shoveled on dirt. You could stand up underneath 
the ties. He cut steps in the earth so we could get down in 
there. 

But we never used our bumbproof. My mother was n't 
scared of anything — did n't seem to be. We were right 
between the Yankee and Confederate batteries, and we 
did n't know but we'd be killed. That did n't make any 
difference. We slept in our beds, but if the shells were 
coming from any particular direction we'd move over to 
the other side of the house. 

Father left us as soon as he finished the bumbproof. We 
did n't expect to see him again for a long time, but just be- 
fore the Yankees captured the town he surprised us by 
returning. "Oh, heavens!" Mother exclaimed, " what did 
you come back for?" 

She knew she was safe, but she thought he'd get into 
trouble. 



The Machinist's Daughter 377 

"I came to take you and the children away to where 
you'll be out of danger," he answered. 

"Well, I'm not going," she said. "If there's no one on 
the place to take care of things we'll lose everything we 
have." 

So Father had to go off by himself. Shortly afterward 
the Yankees took possession of the town. While they re- 
mained Mother never left the house for a day, but we 
kept on good terms with them just as we had with the 
Confederates. You'd think they would have stolen all our 
garden truck, but they did n't, and I '11 tell you why. The 
hospitals wanted the things we raised, and so did the 
Union officers. Mother often gave the officers some of the 
vegetables without pay. Yes, she'd divide with 'em to a 
certain extent, but they bought things, too, and she 
swapped with 'em for brown sugar, coffee, and hardtack. 
They liked to exchange coffee for buttermilk. We did n't 
suffer. 

A lot of grass was growing in our yard, and the officers 
would ask if their horses could graze there, and Mother 
would let 'em. 

Sometimes the soldiers would slip into the garden in the 
night and dig potatoes. They did that because they were 
hungry, and they only dug what they wanted to eat. In 
those days and times they did n't feel like they was steal- 
ing when they took things. 

One day two men came to our back door and said they 
were going to take our stove. 

" No you won't," Mother told 'em. " If you come inside 
this house I '11 kill you. But no, you wait — some guards 
are coming, and they'll get you instead of your gettin' our 
stove." 



1 



378 Atlanta 

Then she stepped into the next room and told my 
brother to go to headquarters and tell the officers there 
that we needed protection. He was a little bit of a fellow, 
but he went, and a Northern general at headquarters sent 
some guards right down. However, by that time the two 
men had done gone. 

Once the soldiers come in the night and stole a whole lot 
of chickens. Mother had one hundred and sixty, and they 
got about half of 'em. 

We had a neighbor named Mis' Green. One morning 
Mother happened to look out of our kitchen door and saw 
some soldiers leadin' Mis' Green's cow away, and Mis' 
Green was beggin' 'em not to. 

"Why do you let 'em take your cow?" Mother called 
out. "I would n't let 'em take it," she said. 

But Mis' Green did n't know how to stop 'em, and she 
just went right on after 'em cryin'. 

We had a big padlock on our gate that kept our cows 
safe while they were on the home place, but we lost one 
while she was out grazing. She was gone when my brother 
looked for her, and he said, "Well, I will get my cow." 

So he went over to the camp and found her there and 
claimed her. But he was too small. The men would n't 
pay any attention to what he said. If he'd come right to 
Mother when he first missed the cow she'd have gone and 
got it. There was no use trying to do anything after he 
returned home. They'd killed the cow by that time. 

We kept a dog. His name was Bob. He was a good- 
sized dog with straight, black hair. He'd bark at the 
soldiers and they'd stab him with their bayonets. Bob was 
stabbed or shot nine times. He would n't recover from one 
wound before he'd get another. Father was at home once 



The Machinist's Daughter 379 

when a regiment was passing and a soldier stabbed Bob. 
That made Father mad, and he cussed the whole regiment. 
It's a wonder they did n't shoot him and Bob, too. 

At the far end of our lot was our cow pen, and beyond 
that was another lot. One night Mother heard the dog 
making an awful fuss up by the cow pen. She slipped out 
real easy and heard three men talking in the next lot. The 
night was dark and she could n't see them, but she could 
hear the three voices. The men were talking about coming 
to steal our chickens or something. 

Mother returned to the house and then went out again 
making a great racket. "Come, Bob," she called to the 
dog, " I can do more to keep those fellows where they be- 
long than you can. Pat, bring that gun from behind the 
door. Three Yankees are out here. Put a bullet in 'em." 

The prowlers did n't wait to see what would happen, but 
ran off. We heard that when they got to camp they swore 
that Mother was a witch. They said: "We ain't goln' to 
fool with her any more. How'd she know three men were 
out there?" 

Our dog went all through the war without gettin' killed, 
but he did n't live long afterward. There was a nigger 
servant in a house across the street, and Bob would bite 
at him. You get a right black dog, and he hates a nigger. 
He can't bear a darky at all. This nigger servant was 
afraid of Bob, and finally fed him cut glass in a piece of 
meat and so killed him. At any rate we suspicioned that 
he was the guilty one, but we could n't prove it. 

When the Yankees were ready to leave Atlanta they 
went about the city setting fire to the buildings. Some 
come up our street and were going to set fire to our house. 
Mother begged them not to, and their leader said: " Come 



380 Atlanta 

on, boys. Here's one woman brave enough to stay in 
Atlanta and protect her home. We won't burn her house." 

No sooner were they out of the yard than Mother put 
on her bonnet and went up through our garden, dimbed 
the back fence, and kept on till she come to the house of 
an old lady who had refugeed. Mother stood there on the 
porch, and those same soldiers come along. They did n't 
recognize her in her sunbonnet, and the leader said: 
"Here's another woman brave enough to protect her 
home. We'll leave her house, too." 

Mother often laughed over how she saved both houses. 
She certainly must have had an iron nerve. I know I 
did n't inherit it. 

While the burning was going on my brother disappeared. 
He had been playing around the yard, but now he was 
gone, and Mother ran everywhere to find him. She was 
most crazy. At last she found him in a vacant lot over 
near a car shed that we understood had powder stored in it. 
The car shed was burning and she was expecting an explo- 
sion any moment. My brother had shot a bird with a sling- 
shot, or something. A nigger boy had got the bird and 
would n't give it up. That made my brother mad and he 
had the other boy down and was pounding him. It was 
war between black and white, was n't it? Mother was glad 
enough to find my brother, no matter what he was doing, 
and she got him home in a hurry. 

Well, in the course of time the war ended, and Father 
came back to stay. But the hardships were n't all past. 
The only thing that was plenty was Confederate money. 
It was no good though, and everybody threw it away. 

Women and children would go out on the battlefields 
and pick up bullets. We could pick 'em up all around 



The Machinist's Daughter 381 

Atlanta, and we could sell the lead to the commissary for 
something to eat. My brother and I carried some bullets 
to the commissary once. We had 'em in my school satchel. 
It was n't more than half full, but the man we talked to 
seemed to take a fancy to me and said something nice 
about my long, black, curly hair, and he gave us a big 
sack of corn for our little pigs. 

Not long ago I had a whole cup full of those battlefield 
bullets in the house here. You see a person who has never 
moved accumulates a lot of trash. 



A Girl in the Shenandoah Valley ^ 

When the war broke out my father had a large flouring 
mill here on Cedar Creek. It was doing a good business 
and he was making money. He had a sawmill, too, and 
used it constantly until some Yankee troops came through 
here in '62. Up to that time the people in this vicinity 
were right prosperous. 

I was the oldest of the children of the family, and I was 
small. Father was a very old man. He was sixty, I reckon. 
Mother was a good deal younger. They were opposed to 
slavery, but a family of slaves was willed to Mother, and 
they came here to live. There were two sisters and two 
brothers. They were bright, but also real independent, and 
kind of dangerous. Several white tenants of ours lived 
across the creek and worked for us, and we hired others. 

I s'pose it was about April that the Yankees were here 
in '62. They broke into our granary and smokehouse in 
the night, and the doors were all open in the morning when 
our folks were astir. Besides, they destroyed the bolting 
cloths in the flouring mill. One army or the other got all 
our horses, and we could n't use our sawmill any more be- 
cause we had no teams to draw logs. We could n't keep 

^ The girl of long ago was now a gray-haired woman. She was 
delightfully hospitable and made me welcome to the sitting-room of 
the fine, dignified old brick farmhouse in which she lived. The day was 
dull, but indoors a cheerful fire blazing on the hearth banished all 
gloom. 



A Girl in the Shenandoah Valley 383 

anything that was good, and we thought we were having 
a hard time, but affairs were n't quite so dizzy those days 
as they were later in the war. 

The Northerners annoyed us most. The trouble of it 
was that there were so many toughs in the Union army. 
You opened your penitentiaries and let the convicts out to 
become soldiers, and you hired a heap of foreigners for 
soldiers. We were always glad to see our troops back, 
though there were some bad men among them as well as 
among the Yankees. You could n't trust 'em to behave if 
they'd been drinking. Yes, our army had its bad men, and 
yours had its good men. At such times as the Northerners 
camped near here a guard was sent to stay at the house. 
We'd get friendly with him, and with others who would 
come from the camp and sit awhile of an evening. We 
liked some of them very well. 

When the armies would stay away long enough Father 
would buy one or two old horses and try to draw wood and 
farm a little. There were right good woods over the creek, 
but it was n't always easy to get to 'em. Oftentimes the 
bridge was down. The old bridge which was there at the 
beginning of the war was burned by a retreating army. 
Afterward a trustle bridge was put up, and the high water 
washed that away. The troops built temporary bridges in 
its place one after the other as they were destroyed either 
for military purposes or by floods. When there was no 
bridge the only way to cross was at fords. 

We planted our garden every year, but we never knew 
who 'd gather what we raised in it. The soldiers would take 
our onions and dig our sweet potatoes, and we could n't 
have apples or anything. If they were here in grape time 
they got our grapes. Yes, I can tell you that — they 



384 Cedar Creek 

gathered the crops. But if we had good luck we'd grow 
cabbages and make kraut, and we'd raise enough sorghum 
to make some sorghum molasses. Whenever we could we 
had a cow, but we were apt to lose her, and we'd go for a 
long, long time without butter or milk. We always had 
corn bread and some wheat bread. Our own mill was dis- 
abled, and we got the grinding done at mills off the pike 
that escaped. There was sure to be lard in the house, but 
we seldom had meat. We never starved, and our chief 
complaint was that we did n't have any variety hardly. 

Often the soldiers came to the house to ask for some- 
thing to eat, and we'd give it to 'em if we had it. Some- 
times they'd walk right in and take things. If no officers 
were on hand they'd be real rude to us. 

We raised a little corn on two small fields that lay out 
of sight like, where the hills and trees hid them. But the 
fields did n't either of 'em contain over five or six acres; so 
we could n't raise much. 

What helped us out more than anything else was a little 
mountain farm that we owned. It was eight or ten miles 
from here. We had sheep up there that furnished us with 
wool, and fields of corn and wheat. A man rented the 
farm and got some share of the wool, and he divided with 
us the crops that he raised. 

In the summer-time we'd get the wool ready to send to 
the fulling mill to be carded and made into rolls. There 
was always a-plenty for us to do. When the rolls came 
back Mother would spin 'em into thread, and we took the 
thread to a woman who wove it into cloth. Some of the 
cloth was linsey for the women, and some was a heavier 
cloth for men's wear. 

We colored a good deal of the wool. If we wanted black 



A Girl in the Shenandoah Valley 385 

we used logwood, and by mixing black and white wool we'd 
get gray. For brown we made a dye out of walnut hulls, 
and for a bright color we'd perhaps use pokeberries, but 
they did n't make a lasting color. 

It was a very hard thing to get clothes during the war, 
and yet we always managed somehow. Our summer 
dresses were cotton. We bought the thread in hanks and 
had it woven by the same woman who wove our wool. We 
dyed the thread with indigo and copperas as long as we 
could get the dyes. I remember I had a summer dress 
made in those days that was tan and white striped. 
Toward the end of the war we dyed with hickory wood. 
That colored the cotton a light yellow. We made the 
dresses ourselves here at home. 

Sometimes we had plain, gray, linen dresses. We raised 
flax, and after the husks were roughed off by hackling and 
swingling, it was spun and woven into cloth for sheets and 
towels, dresses, and underwear. Some of the linen thread 
was used for the warp in weaving rag carpets. Pretty much 
every one had rag carpets then. 

This house was a general's headquarters twice. One of 
the generals who used it was a Dutchman with foreign 
soldiers. When those Dutch came through the valley in 
'62 they ransacked houses and treated the people cruelly. 
I know we had great fear of them. They'd tear up quilts 
and the homemade counterpanes and coverlids and such 
things. They were here when the green leaves first came 
in the spring. 

The general took all of our house except one room. His 
officers would go around with spurs on their boots and 
their swords clanking on the carpets, and when we saw how 
they did we took the carpets up. The general had a French 



386 Cedar Creek 

cook and lived in style. He said we would all eat together, 
but oh my goodness! we tried it once and that was enough. 
They stayed so long at table and had so many courses! 
and they drank wines and they smoked. Afterward we 
ate at a little table in our room. Sometimes we'd take 
things to a neighbor's to cook. We've got one of that 
general's stone beer jugs here now. We keep vinegar 
in it. 

There were five tents in the yard. I s'pose some of the 
general's staff were in those. It seemed to us children like 
a long time that he stayed in our house. He had a large 
flag on a tall pole near the gate. When the wind blew 
from the right direction the flag would wave over the path. 
The older people of our household would n't go under it, 
and we children patterned after them and turned aside, too. 

At one time we had a sick Southern soldier in the house 
when the Yankees raided through the region. They stopped 
at our place and asked if any Rebel soldiers were there, and 
we said "No." 

That did n't satisfy 'em, and they come in and looked 
around. They even opened the door of the room where 
the sick soldier lay and poked their heads in, but he was 
only a young lad and had his face to the wall. So they 
went away and did n't discover that he was a soldier. I'll 
show you his daguerreotype. There, that's him. Is n't he 
too nice a boy to be shot? 

We could n't keep any poultry or hogs if they were 
where the soldiers could get at 'em. When Sheridan 
camped here the last time we had four chickens in the 
garret, and we made a pen in the cellar and kept one hog 
there. 

The soldiers destroyed a good deal just from meanness. 



A Girl in the Shenandoah Valley 387 

Everything was laid waste on the farms around us. At 
one place they even took the weather-boarding from the 
corn crib and hoghouse. We had a right large barn, but 
they tore it down. They told us they wanted the material 
for building a bridge across the creek, but Father said they 
used very little of it in the bridge. 

Shortly after dinner one day we looked out and saw that 
the flouring mill was on fire. It had stone walls, and the 
soldiers had piled up a lot of lightwood just inside of the 
door and started the fire in that wood. The wind was 
blowing, and the flames spread to the sawmill and to a 
small building that we used for extry work such as boiling 
apple-butter. 

The soldiers carried brands to put under the frames of 
the log hoghouse and the corn crib, and they burnt the 
hoghouse, but some officers saved the corn crib. The 
officers told us to watch the house and see that the soldiers 
did n't set fire to that. 

Sheridan's raid was in the autumn of 1864. He came to 
our valley to destroy everything that an enemy might use, 
and his troops burned two thousand barns and seventy 
mills, and they gathered up four thousand head of cattle. 
They were opposed by the Confederate General Early, 
and they had a number of fights with him before the battle 
of Cedar Creek was fought on October 19th. 

The Yankee camp was only a short distance from our 
house when they fought here. It had been there for some 
time and we had so little food of our own then that we 
drew rashions at the camp. I reckon we youngsters were 
thinking about something to eat pretty constantly, and 
Mother felt obliged to do what she could for us. She and a 
stout young woman who worked for us would each take 



388 Cedar Creek 

a basket and go over to headquarters, and the men there 
would give 'em crackers, beef, coffee, and sugar. 

Father was n't well, and at the time of the battle he 
had been sick in bed with an attack of bilious fever, and 
had just got up. Mother had hired the young woman be- 
cause she did n't like to stay here without some other able- 
bodied person besides herself in the house. She was n't 
any coward either. She was brave, and she needed to be. 
We never knew what would happen next. One afternoon 
Mother was sitting in a rocking-chair side of the lounge 
holding the baby, and a bullet came through the window 
sash and fell on her lap. It was a stray bullet fired by the 
Union soldiers who were practisin' over on the hill. Oh, 
we had some narrow escapes! 

The battle began early one misty morning before sun- 
up. Sheridan's army of forty thousand men were asleep in 
their tents. They were not expecting an attack, and 
Sheridan himself was in Winchester, fifteen miles north of 
here. Our men crept up by stealth, and the Federals were 
completely surprised. They did n't have time to form 
in line, and they were quickly beaten and retreated in 
disorder. 

We had been inside of the Union lines, and the first I 
knew of the battle Mother woke us children up to look out 
and see the Yankee pickets surrender. Soon afterward two 
Southern soldiers come along carrying a wounded comrade. 
They would have brought him into the house, but just as 
they got to the gate he died. The three were brothers, and 
the two who had been carrying the wounded man buried 
him in the orchard under an apple tree and put up a piece 
of pine board at the head of the grave with the name of 
the dead brother very neatly penciled on it. They said 




SETTING FIRE TO THE BUILDINGS 



A Girl in the Shenandoah Valley 389 

they would come again for the body, but they never 
did. 

It was my lot to take care of the smaller children during 
the day, and I had right smart trouble with 'em. They 
were crying for something to eat, and I had nothing to 
give 'em. It was very trying. 

The wounded of both armies were brought to our house 
till every room downstairs was full, and the yard outside 
was filled, too. They just lay on the floor or on the grass 
with maybe a blanket or overcoat under 'em. The sur- 
geons took anything they could get in the house for band- 
ages. 

I came downstairs once in a while to see what was going 
on, and there was one time that I went out to watch some 
Southern cavalry going along the pike with a lot of pris- 
oners. They brought 'em here and kept 'em in a field 
behind the house. I'd hardly been outside of the house 
two minutes looking at the cavalry when I was called back 
in to take care of those cross children. I never got to give 
anything to the wounded. Mother was waiting on 'em, 
and made coffee for 'em. 

When the Union army was routed they say that Early's 
men plundered the camp instead of pursuing the enemy. 
Then General Sheridan, who had heard the cannonading, 
came galloping from Winchester. He met his retreating 
troops and stopped them. "Face the other way, boys!" 
he shouted. 

Soon he had changed the whole course of the movement 
and got his men into fighting trim. Back they came then, 
and when the day ended Early's army had been almost 
destroyed. We heard .our men retreating about four 
o'clock, and toward sundown, as the last of 'em were pass- 



390 Cedar Creek 

ing here, the surgeons set fire to the medical wagons and 
hurried off. Some of the wagons were down on the 
meadow by the springhouse, and some up the hill back of 
the orchard. The chemicals in them made a bright blaze. 

While the wagons were burning the Northern cavalry- 
came and recaptured the prisoners who were in our field, 
and took possession of the artillery their men had aban- 
doned in the morning. By night the Union surgeons were 
here in the house. 

I never experienced so many stirring events in any other 
day in my life. I'm always right wide awake where there's 
excitement, but after things quieted down that evening 
we went to bed and I think I slept some before morning. 

When we got up we found that right smart of the 
wounded men who had been brought to our house and 
yard had died. I tell you what, 'twas awful! Most of the 
survivors were taken away that day to Winchester, and 
then we had the cleaning up to do. The rooms were 
bloody, and out on the back porch, where the surgeons 
did their amputating, Father cleared the blood off with a 
shovel. 

All of the second night after the battle we sat in the 
sitting-room on chairs or the lounge. The blinds were 
pulled down and we kept a bright fire burning, for the 
night was cool. Two Southern soldiers lay dying on the 
kitchen floor. They had been fatally hurt, but were so 
long dying that some of the Union soldiers wanted to bury 
'em before they were dead. Mother went to an oflficer to 
prevent that. 

A good many of the dead were buried on our place — 
some along the pike, some on the hillside back of the 
granary, and some near where we got water to use for 



A Girl in the Shenandoah Valley 391 

washing, and the water used to smell. The bodies were 
all taken up after the war except that of the soldier who 
had been buried by his brothers in the orchard. 

We were dreadfully broken up by the war, and had a 
hard struggle to get started again. We did n't have any- 
thing hardly, and we had to go mighty far away to get 
our first meat. The fences were all gone, and rails had to 
be split before we could inclose the fields to raise crops. 
Our only horse was a broken-down army horse that was 
picked up on the battlefield. 

Father had a terrible turn with neuralgia and the rheu- 
matism, and he felt so poor that he stopped using tobacco 
and did n't buy any more. You know it's mighty bad to 
break off a lifelong habit that way. Mother was one of 
those people who always manage to have a little money, 
and she bought him some tobacco, but he would n't take 
it. We fared hard — all of us. We certainly did! 



LI 

The Colored Woman at Headquarters ^ 

When John Brown broke out I was twenty-one years old. 
So I ain' no young chicken no mo', but I do jus' as much 
work yet as any of my gran'chil'en. In war-time I worked 
at the Belle Grove place. Me and my father and four of his 
chil'en who were small lived right at the yard in a two- 
story log cabin. Belle Grove belonged to Mr. Cooley, and 
it was a big farm. Oh, my, yes, sir! 

Mr. Cooley owned a woman and some chil'en, but I was 
bound. I never was a slave. One week I'd be cookin' at 
the big house, and the next week I'd be a field han'. 
The slave woman and I took turn about, you know. I 
used to drop the corn when the men were planting, and I'd 
help cuttin' up com, and when they had the horse-power 
th'ashing I'd take the sacks off and I'd put back the chaff. 
I would always help in harvestin' and such as that, and 
when they were extry busy at the big house I'd put in mo' 
time there makin' butter, perhaps, and washin' and doin' 
other work that needed doin'. 

The war made us lots of trouble. As I've often said 
since, I felt as if the world was comin' to an end in a short 

1 She lived in a cabin amid the farmlands at the end of a rough, 
crooked lane. There were numerous children about the place, and 
there was much dirt and care-free disorder. A thin, tall old woman met 
me at the door and ushered me into a tiny low-ceiled parlor where 
there were draperies at the windows, and a piano and other furniture 
more aspiring than I would have expected. It was in this parlor tha.t I 
heard the woman's story of her war-time trials. 



The Colored Woman at Headquarters 393 

time. We could n't understan' what was goin' on. You 
could hear a heap of things, but the poor black people 
didn't know — didn't know! Some would say one thing 
and some another. A great many of the slaves run off 
North, and a great many others were taken up the country 
by their masters out of the way of the army. Often there 'd 
be only a few old ones left to help on a place. None of us 
went away from Belle Grove. We had to stay to keep 
everything together what we could. There was nobody 
hardly that could be hired to help tend the crops, and 
we jus' raised enough wheat and corn to keep us goin'. 
Sometimes we'd get right smart, and other times the sol- 
diers would get everything. 

They would carry off considerable outdoor stuff unbe- 
knownst to us, and they would come into the house and 
look around and take what they pleased — victuals, flour, 
anything. We did n't interfere with 'em. We was skeered 
and was glad if they took the stuff and did us no other 
harm. 

Both sides acted a good deal alike about stealin' and 
destroyin', and reely we did n't know the Yankees and the 
Rebels apart when the war broke out. Toward the end, we 
could n't hardly tell which from which because the South- 
erners would have on old blue clothes that they 'd got off 
the camp, I suppose. 

When Sheridan's army come to Cedar Crick it looked 
right frightful, there was so many men. The soldiers 
troubled us a good deal 'fore the head men got here. 
General Sheridan made Belle Grove his headquarters. He 
was a small man. I used to see him. There were tents all 
over the yard, and some of the scouts slept upstairs in our 
cabin. Oh, my goodness! the soldiers were in and out all 



394 Cedar Creek 

the time. I did washing and baked bread for 'em, and 
everything like that, and they paid me. 

The first I knowed on the morning of the battle some 
soldiers come into our house gettin' up the scouts who 
slept there. Everybody bounced up as soon as they could, 
and the scouts rolled out of the house in a hurry. I run 
and looked out, and then I shut the door. It was already 
daylight and the fightin' had begun. The Confederates 
were drivin' the Union men across the field down below 
the house. 

We kep' as far back in our cabin as we could, and we 
set there not knowin' when we'd be killed. It was too late 
to get to the big house. We was lazy in bed that morning, 
and we had to stay lazy there in the cabin. 

Some of the Yankees got back of a wall side of the Belle 
Grove house, but Lor! they did n't stop there long. In a 
little while the guns was n't firin' right around us no mo'. 
So I went to the door and looked out. The tents that had 
been in the yard were all gone, and I could see men layin' 
about over the fields every which way. The fields looked 
jus' like new ground with the stumps on it. 

After the armies got away men began to cl'ar up the 
wounded. They brought 'em to the big house and laid 'em 
in the yard. I was as crazy as them that was shot, I 
reckon. I 'd run to the door and then run back. Soldiers 
were goin' all the time and the ambulances were comin' to 
get the wounded and take 'em off. 

Mr. Cooley's sister's daughter and I went down the hill 
right smart with our wooden buckets to fetch water. If 
any of the wounded or the other soldiers asked us for a 
drink as we passed by we gave it to 'em. 
"• Some of the wounded was still layin' in the yard and 



The Colored Woman at Headquarters 395 

out in the lot when the troops come back that evening. 
We'd got news that they were comin', and we had all gone 
to the cellar of the big house. The cellar was where the 
cookin' was done, and the rooms down there were nice and 
large and had rock walls. I did n't feel much like keepin' 
quiet when I could hear those wounded men groanin' in 
the yard, even if the battle was goin' on. So I jus' spent 
my time walkin' from one door to another and peepin' 
out. But the others was settin' down and squattin' in the 
corners, anywheres they thought it was safest. 

We stayed in the cellar till we heard no mo' shootin' or 
nothin', and then we come out. There was Southern infan- 
try in back of the house then makin' for the pike. The 
Union men returned to the yard that night. We went to 
our cabin to sleep, but, good land! we did n't feel much 
like sleepin' — we did n't know what mought break up. 
We sat up long as we could hear any one stirring around. 

The next morning the wounded was all gone, and we 
gradually got things straightened out. But we was always 
mo' or less uneasy and fearful. I was glad when I heard 
that the war was over. Those was pitiful times — pitiful 
times! 



LII 

A Country Youth's Adventures^ 

I 'm a man that knows what trouble is. Last July I lost 
my wife after her bein' sick for twenty years, and just at 
present I 'm my own housekeeper. 

When the battle was fought here I was sixteen, but 
until the war ended I always said I was fifteen, because I 
was n't overly anxious to go into the army. They could 
draft you at sixteen. 

We are only fifteen miles from the Potomac, and on the 
other side of that was Yankee-land, but this Shenandoah 
Valley was genuine Confederate country, and the people 
who lived in it were "our" people. At first we thought 
the Yankees were a set of scoundrels, and we were dread- 
ing 'em. We did n't know what they looked like until 
Banks raided through here. But when we got acquainted 
we found they were human with about the same faults and 
virtues as our own men. 

After the troops were in camp we did n't fear 'em 
much because there was some sort of law and order estab- 
lished then. But we had reason enough to be anxious when 
they were on a stir. You could n't blame 'em though for 

1 I called on him at his farm home one lowering spring evening. He 
was a sinewy, small-statured, elderly man who was living alone, and I 
found him doing the kitchen work. But that was quickly disposed of, 
and we went to the sitting-room. It was late when I was ready to 
leave, and the night was dark. So my host put a light in the window 
and accompanied me across a field to a footbridge that would take me 
onto the highway. 



A Country Youth's Adventures 397 

lookin' around to see what they could pick up in the line 
of something to eat. A soldier's life is a dog's life, anyway, 
and a steady diet of crackers and pickled pork becomes 
stagnant to the stomach. The men would want a change. 
Often they came to houses to get pies or a loaf of bread, 
and of course the roughs would take advantage of you. 

But it was n't the soldiers who made the most trouble. 
A great many men generally followed the army who had 
no business in it at all. These scalawags, as I call 'em, just 
gobbled up whatever they could lay their hands on. The 
robbers would come into the house and take the bread and 
flour and corn meal and everything so that the women 
and children and old men suffered for something to eat. 
That was common throughout the country. I know one of 
the neighbors did n't have a mouthful of food in the house. 
A girl there and her little brother went to the Yankee 
army and drawed rashions for the family to keep from 
starvin'. 

If a scamp came alone to rob a house the people would 
often turn him away, but if there was more than one or 
two together the people had to surrender. One morning 
we sat down to eat our breakfast of Graham bread and a 
little fried meat when half a dozen or more soldiers walked 
in. They stripped the table — just gobbled up all the 
victuals on it — and away they went. They did n't pay. 
It would have been something if they'd had good manners, 
but they did n't have that. 

We never got entirely out of food at our house. My 
mother and father were pretty good providers, and they'd 
hid stuff to eat in the garret. My sister would n't let any 
Yankee go up there. She was a young woman who had 
considerable courage, and she carried a revolver in her 



398 Cedar Creek 

pocket. It was n't loaded, but when she showed it and 
threatened to shoot, it would shrink a man every time. 
They knew she could do things a man could n't, and escape 
punishment. Even if she was to kill some one under such 
circumstances, she would n't be hung. 

Once a Yankee come to our house and opened the door 
and walked right in. He had some uniform buckled onto 
him and said he was a-huntin' Rebels. Daddy was there, 
and my mother, and two of the girls. My sister that had 
the revolver said to the man, "There are no Rebels in the 
house." 

" I'll find that out for myself," he told her, and he was 
pushin' right along to go upstairs. 

. She stood in his way, and he spoke threateningly to her, 
and Father said, " If you hurt her you'll not get out of here 
alive." 

She 'd taken her revolver out of her pocket and was 
holding it under her apron, but she showed it enough to 
let the man know she had it. " I'll shoot you if you go up 
that stairway," she said. "Leave this house"; and he 
did n't stop to argue the matter. 

The outlaws often searched houses for silverware and 
jewelry that had been hid. They'd take whatever was of 
any value to 'em. I 've known 'em to hunt for Rebels, as 
they said, and prod the ceilings and floors with their bay- 
onets pretending they were lookin' for a trap door. 

The better sort of soldiers paid for what they got, some- 
times in gold and silver, but usually in Yankee greenbacks 
or Confederate paper money. Not all of us would accept 
the greenbacks. They were shaky in their value the same 
as our own paper bills. 

At the time of Banks' retreat we left everything and dug 



A Country Youth's Adventures 399 

out. It was early in June and Daddy had a growing crop. 
The soldiers went right across the fields. They camped 
near by and turned their horses into our grain and clover, 
and what the horses did n't eat off they tramped down. 
Our crop was pretty near ruined, and the pay was n't in 
it that day, either. 

Well, the Yankees kept pickin' up our hogs and other 
livestock and the things we raised on the land till there 
was n't much left. Whenever we heard they were coming 
we'd try to save our stock by hiding it, and that was the 
habit of all the community. Unless we sneaked our stock 
away from this valley pike we knew it would be stolen. We 
generally went to North Mountain. The edge of the moun- 
tain was only about three miles away, but we'd go farther 
if we heard that the army was comin' nearer. A man could 
ride one horse and lead three or four others. He'd carry- 
just a little something to eat and a blanket to protect him 
from the weather. If it was stormy he 'd get shelter in some 
barn or house. Often Union scouts were roaming around 
dressed in Rebel clothes, and there were sharp, shrewd 
Confederates who dressed up in Yankee clothes and went 
all over. If we met a man we did n't know, we could n't 
judge which side he belonged to by his dress, and if he 
asked us questions when we were on the road with our 
horses we'd tell him they'd gotten away or something. 
Our object was to put him off the trail and not arouse 
his suspicion. 

' After we got to the mountain the women and children 
would be comin' every few days to bring a sack of grain for 
the horses and a basket of provisions for the men. They 
walked back and forth. Yes, indeed! It was nothing for a 
woman to walk ten miles then. Besides bringing food they 



400 Cedar Creek 

brought the news and it would be passed along from one 
refugee to another. 

Right back of my father's place was a thick wood, and 
we'd often take our horses there when we got word that a 
raid was comin'. My two younger brothers and me would 
ride the horses into the thickest brush and tie 'em. We 
thought nothing of staying out in the woods all night with 
'em so they would n't hurt themselves, but usually we'd 
only stay till dark and then come back to the house. 

A neighbor kept his horse in the smokehouse when there 
was danger, and if any one came near the smokehouse that 
horse stopped chewing and would hardly breathe. He was 
as good at hiding as his master was at hiding him. 

Once I was captured. Me and my next younger brother 
and a neighbor boy had gone to a pond to water our stock. 
It was winter. There was no snow on the ground, but the 
pond was frozen, and we tied our horses to the fence and 
went to sliding on the ice while the cattle were drinking. 
The pond was near a road, and pretty soon along came a 
lot of Yankee raiders and seen us there playing. When we 
looked up everything was blue. We'd been so interested 
in our fun and were making such a racket that we never 
noticed the Yankees till the cavalry and infantry of the 
whole command halted opposite the pond. 

We was scared — well, I should reckon we was ! At 
home, my older brother who was a Rebel cavalryman, was 
layin' right then sick with inflammatory rheumatism, and 
I had the horse he rode in the army. I was more anxious 
about him and his horse than I was about myself. 

The Yankee commander called us off the pond and told 
us we must go with him to Strasburg, four or five mile 
distant. He had all three of us walk along at the head of 



A Country Youth's Adventures 401 

his troops. Some of the infantry got on our horses. I begged 
him not to take us far because our cattle would get lost, and 
I told him my father was a Union man. He asked us where 
the Rebels were, and I answered that they were up the 
valley, but that I knowed nothing about their camp. 

My younger brother was so scared that he could n't say 
a thing, and the neighbor boy would only grunt a few 
words. They let me do the talking. I had the cheek, and 
I was too young to fear being carried away. I soft-sided 
the officer the best I could, and after we'd gone about two 
mile he let us off. Then I told him it was too far for us to 
walk back. I begged for our horses, and he ordered his 
men to turn 'em over to us. 

As soon as he let us go and we got a little away from the 
army, we all rode for life to get out of gunshot. I went 
straight on through the woods and over the fences toward 
home. When we hurried off like that the moment we got 
loose, the Yankees thought we was n't as innocent as 
we'd pretended to be. So they chased us, but my horse 
was a blooded mare, and she was much faster than their 
horses. 

I met my soldier brother when I was only one field from 
home. He was wearin' his uniform, and had his revolver 
and saber buckled around him. I got off the mare, and he 
leaped into the saddle, and when I saw him goin' and knew 
he'd- escaped I throwed up my hat and hollered. I went 
along to the house, and there I found the Yankees so thick 
around that I could n't get in. If my brother had been just 
five minutes later they would have got him. 

When Sheridan camped on these crick hills in October, 
1864, I was stayin' at the house of a neighbor named 
Hoover. Jim Hoover was off refugeein' in the mountains 



402 Cedar Creek 

with his stock. His father was crazy, and I 'd gone there 
to help take care of this old crazy man. Besides him, there 
was the old lady and a daughter and a hired girl at the 
house. 

Old Hoover did n't know his own mind, and there was 
just a channel between his bein' harmless and dangerous. 
He was likely to get cross to his wife, and he was very 
rough to all the family. At times he was a good deal worse 
than at other times. He had to be watched for fear he'd 
set the buildings on fire. The less work he did the worse he 
was. He was able to saw wood, but I had to threaten to 
whip him or something of that kind to get him out of the 
house to work. 

The Hoovers lived just south of Sheridan's picket lines. 
Even a hog could n't have got through those picket lines. 
There were three or four of 'em, and the pickets were walk- 
ing back and forth all the time about thirty paces each 
way. Squads of men were posted at advanced spots on the 
roads, and if anything was wrong a report would be sent 
right in to headquarters-. 

At four o'clock on the morning of the battle I heard the 
first musket open. I was in a fidget anyway on account of a 
couple of Yankee scouts who had stopped at the house in 
the night. As soon as the firing began I got up, but I did n't 
go out of the house till daylight. We were havin' a little 
snack to eat for breakfast when I said, " I 'm goin' on the 
battlefield." 

I'd heard a great deal about battles, but had never 
seen one, and my curiosity was excited. Go I must, even 
if I got into the blood myself. Then Miss Hoover and the 
hired girl, who were about my age, said they wanted to go 
with me if I did n't care. They knew I 'd look after 'em. 



A Country Youth's Adventures 403 

"All right," I said, and they put on their sunbonnets 
and I put on my old black slouch hat and we started. 

We had to cross the crick, and when we were on the 
bridge we saw that the water was full of guns. The Yanks 
had thrown their guns away. 

Soon we got to the battlefield, and we walked right along 
to the Yankee camp. Men had run out of their bunks who 
did n't get their guns at all, and we saw soldiers in the 
tents who had been shot there. Some of 'em were not dead. 
Behind the breastworks the dead and wounded were layin' 
five deep, and we waded through blood as we looked around. 
You see the Rebs took the breastworks endways — and it 
was playin' on the enemy like that that killed 'em so fast. 

The wounded men were hollerin' and screamin' and 
prayin'. We heard one Southern soldier prayin' for his 
wife and children way down in Alabama, and he was 
beggin' just for life enough to get back to see 'em. A 
doctor come along and examined him and moved on. He 
said there was no hope. It was sad, sir. 

You 'd think the sights would have made the girls faint, 
but in that war girls got pretty tough and they did n't 
faint easy. We was n't carin' to stay long, though, and 
presently the girls said their curiosity was rather gettin' 
satisfied. 

So we started back, and we went down toward the crick 
to where there was a big brick farmhouse that had been 
turned into a hospital. The wounded were inside the house 
and outside both. The front yard was full, and they lay 
there close together arranged in sections so as to have con- 
venient walkways. On the back porch the surgeons were 
sawin' off limbs, and as soon as they got through with a 
man he was laid back on the ground where he 'd been be- 



404 Cedar Creek 

fore. They had about a four-horse wagon load of limbs 
outside of the porch in a heap just as you might pile up 
corn or manure. 

The day was pretty warm, and the wounded men were 
very thirsty — there 's no two ways about that. Those 
men were beggin' for just a mouthful of water, and me 'n' 
the girls stayed several hours carrying water to 'em, and 
they thanked us as we waited on 'em. 

At last we went on again toward home, and after we'd 
gone half a mile we found another hospital at a stone 
blacksmith's shop. But we did n't stop because just then 
we see there was a skedaddle on hand. Our entire army 
was goin' back as fast as it could, and the Yankees was 
pushin' em. That was a great surprise to us, our men had 
won such a complete victory in the morning. 

We ran for home, but got in the skirmish line. The 
Yanks and Rebs were both shootin' across us, and Miss 
Hoover was almost helpless with fright. The hired girl 
seemed to have more spunk about her. I was n't any too 
fond of those little fellers whistlin' overhead, but of course 
I could n't leave Miss Hoover behind. It was all the hired 
girl and I could do to get her to the house. 

When we were indoors we felt safer. There was nothin' 
but musketry, and we stood where we could look out and 
see the men running and shooting at each other. The girls 
said they never wanted to see another fight like that, but I 
was pretty hard for my part, and I just felt as if I ought to 
have a gun and shoot, too. 

We'd gone off that morning and left the crazy man to 
luck and the old lady, but he was there when we got back. 
He'd been sitting all day rubbing his hands and saying, 
*'0h Jim, oh Jim!" over and over again. 



A Country Youth's Adventures 405 

There had been cannonading in the morning, and a 
number of the window Hghts had got jarred out. We 
squared some boards and fitted 'em into the places where 
the glass was broken. 

The Hoovers did n't have anything left in the house to 
eat. They were obliged to go hungry till I got some wheat 
at our house and carried it to a mill and had it chopped — 
that is, had it ground without bolting. They lived on that 
till Jim come home from refugeein' in the mountains and 
made some arrangement for getting food. 

The Hoovers did n't lose any buildings, and neither did 
my folks. The barns on both places were of logs and not of 
much account, but wherever the Yanks found a fine barn 
or any other building that looked as if it might benefit the 
Southern army they burned it. 



LIII 

The Negro Village Girl ^ 

Our family lived right hyar in Middletown, three miles 
north of whar Sheridan's army camped at Cedar Crick. 
I was about ten then. My father's name was Abe Spencer. 
He was free, and so was the rest of us. Besides him and 
Mother thar was six children at home. Our house was a 
log cabin on a back street jis' across the road from Mr. 
Wright's. 

What they called Yankee scouts used to come in hyar. 
I remember one of 'em by the name of Chrisman. He 
would generally go on this back street, and he'd wave his 
hand as he left. Always after he'd been to town we'd be 
lookin' for the Yankees to break in hyar, and it seem like 
Mother and the old heads were glad watchin' out for 'em 
to come. 

After the first part of the war it was mostly the Northern 

troops that we had around hyar. The Rebels would n't git 

to stay no time. We never knew what was goin' to happen. 

The soldiers would take every bit of cabbage we had grown 

and cl'ar up the garden. They 'd come right into the garden 

when we was workin' thar and take the things. They'd 

come into the house, too, and carry off whatever they could 

find to eat. 

1 She was a very corpulent woman beginning to be elderly, but she 
still had much bodily vigor and a lively mind, and her ample features 
twinkled with good humor. We visited in the kitchen of her com- 
fortable frame house, with listening children gathered about in chairs 
or lying on a sofa that was there. 



The Negro Village Girl 407 

Once two of 'em stopped out in front in the night. They 
sat thar on their horses and kep' a-hollerin': "Hello! Come 
out!" 

They wanted to rob the house. My sister's husband, 
Jacob, was with us that night, and he got up and was goin' 
out to fight 'em and run 'em away. But my sister said: 
"Jacob, don't go out. You 'II git shot." 

So he only went and stood on the steps, and he said, 
" If you darken this door, you '11 never darken another one." 

They answered by shootin', and a bullet whizzed right 
across Jacob's face. Jis' then a guard who was stayin' over 
at the Wrights come out, and the robbers went up the street 
as fast as they could go. 

An old colored servant named Billy worked for Mr. 
Wright, and one October mornin' befo' day, when we 
children were still in bed, he come rappin' at Mother's 
door and called to her: " Git up, Henrietta, git up! They're 
fightin'." 

Mother roused up us children, and we could hear the 
guns at Belle Grove, pop, pop, pop, pop! Belle Grove was 
jis' out of town 'bout a mile and a half. Mother went to the 
gate, and we children went, too, clingin' to her dress-tail. 
She was a very nervous woman, and she was skeered most 
to death. We stood and listened. Ever'body in town had 
got up and lit their lights. Father had gone to find out 
what was goin' on. He was a man that weighed nearly 
three hundred pounds, but he toddled around lively for a 
little while that mornin'. After the fightin' begun in the 
town he went into the house. 

The Yankees come rushin' through hyar with the Rebels 
right after 'em and knockin' 'em in the head, and the 
wounded men were cryin', "Oh Lord, oh Lord!" 



408 Cedar Creek 

I Thar was shootin' all along this pike, and lots of bullets 
went through the upper part of our cabin, but I enjoyed 
it. I was small and did n't understand the dangei . I 
thought it was the finest thing that ever was, and my folks 
could n't hardly keep me in. Father and the others was all 
a-layin' down flat on the floor by the chimbly. But I 
was n't a bit skeered, and I'd run across to the Wright's 
back and forth. Oh! I was busy as a bee. The bumbshells 
was comin' over, and I jis' thought it was grand. One 
bumbshell lodged right in our garden. 

It makes me laugh yet to think what a goose I was. 
Once I went upstairs. We had kind of a loft up thar. I 
stuck my head through a window whar a pane of glass was 
broken out. A Union soldier had hid by the 'Piscopal 
church which was jis' beyond our cabin, and he was takin' 
aim at a Rebel on the corner. But the Rebel went around 
onto the next street out of range, and the Yankee looked up 
and saw me watchin' him. Then he pointed his gun at me, 
and said, " Take your head in or I '11 shoot you." 

I went to jerk my head back and nearly drew the whole 
sash in. I was skeered that time. You see the hole was so 
small that my chin would n't go through without I turned 
my head sideways. " Don't shoot, don't shoot!" I begged. 

"Little girl," the man said, "I'm only funnin' "; and he 
jis' laid back and laughed. 

While the Rebels was still rushin' the Yankees out I ran 
down to Main Street. They was fightin' thar, and I seen 
a Yankee shot on a horse. He reeled first this way, then 
that, and fell off, and his saddle was covered with blood. 
My parents come after me and whipped me back home. 

A few days befo' the battle. Uncle Billy, who belonged to 
Mr. Wright, brought a ham to our house. He wanted to 



The Negro Village Girl 409 

have it whar it would be safe, and at the same time he 
wanted for to put it in a window to sun and keep the skip- 
pers out of it. If the skippers was already in thar, and the 
hot sun struck it, they'd come out and jis' hop and git 
away from it and die. Uncle Billy carried the ham up- 
stairs and left it on a windowsill. Mother told him it was n't 
safe thar and that it would be stolen by the soldiers. But 
he says: "Heny, I'm not afeard of 'em. They won't take 
it." 

The window was on the side of the house toward the 
garden, and he did n't think any soldiers would go around 
that way. But on the day of the fight they went every- 
whar. A number of apple trees was back thar, and some 
Rebel soldiers was gittin' apples and saw the ham. They 
knocked it out with a pole. Yes, they taken Uncle Billy's 
ham, and when he went to look for it later it was gone. 
"Oh Heny!" he says, "my Lord! they've got my ham." 

She says, " Billy, I told you not to put your ham in that 
window." 

He hurried out and hunted and hunted, but his ham 
was gone for good. He went all to pieces then, and he had 
no more use for Rebels. 

Thar was an uproar all that day. In the afternoon the 
Southerners was retreatin', and two Rebel men come in our 
house and said, "We want something to eat." 

"Well, you won't git no food from me," Mother says. 
"I've got nothing for you." 

"You certainly must have something hyar," they said. 

But she was n't goin' to let 'em have anything, and they 
talked very mean to her. "Are you slave or free?" they 
asked. 

Mr. Wright had said to her: "Heny, you let on like you 



410 Cedar Creek 

belonged to me. Jis' tell that to any soldiers that come 
around a-troublin' you, and you'll be safer." 

So she says: "My white people live across the road hyar. 
My master is Mr. Wright." 

"Are you shore you're a slave?" one of the men said. 

"Yes," she answered. 

"I don't believe it," the other feller says. "You're a liar." 

Some soldiers were so owdacious they'd jis' as soon shoot 
you as not, and Mother got pretty uneasy. She went and 
looked out of the door, and I was walkin' right at her 
heels. "Gentlemen," she says, "you better git out of 
hyar. The Yankees are on the next street." 

* ' No, they 're not, ' ' the men said . " We done whipped the 
Yankees this morning, and we're not botherin' about them 
no mo'." 

But Sheridan was comin' back, and the two fellers 
looked out and started to run. On the corner was a 
Yankee ridin' horseback. He was a cavalryman. "Halt!" 
he hollered. "Give up your guns," and he captured the 
two rascals. 

That was good enough for 'em. They was fixin' to raise 
sand with my mother. Oh! some of the soldiers on both 
sides was pretty rough. 

The Rebels had artillery in the orchard behind the 
church, and the Yankees come so sudden that when the 
artillerymen tried to hitch horses to the cannon to drag 'em 
away, the horses got tangled up, and the men could n't git 
the guns started. After that we heard the Yankees backin' 
the Rebels back through the town. 

Mother had done washin' and ironin' befo' the battle for 
the men who were out at the Yankee headquarters. She 
baked bread for 'em, too, and made up a little nourishment 



The Negro Village Girl 411 

such as cakes and custard, and they'd double pay her. 
They thought the Southern cooking was fine. Some of 'em 
rode up to our door that evenin' and shuck hands with her. 
"Glad to meet you, Aunty," they said. "You see we're 
back on our old ground once more." 

It was n't quite dark when they called, and they had n't 
hardly gone when Charlie Matthews come bustin' in our 
door. He was a poor, raw-boned consumptive young strip 
of a man who was one of our white neighbors. "Aunt 
Heny! Uncle Spencer! save me!" he cried. 

The Yankee soldiers had been lookin' around for Rebel 
scouts, and they happened to see him down street wearin' 
gray clothes. Every one dressed thataway had to tell 'em 
his business. He ran and they right after him, but he dodged 
a corner and they lost track of him. 

I remember Father pushin' Charlie up the chimbly. 
Then pretty soon the Yankee soldiers come to the door and 
asked if we'd seen anything of a young feller runnin' 
around hyar dressed in gray clothes. 

"No," we said, "we haven't seen no strangers. We 
have n't seen nobody but what we knowed." 

That satisfied 'em, and they went along. We had to keep 
Charlie up the chimbly till after night. It was a job to git 
him out. Father had to take hold of his legs and pull him 
down. His coat was all slid up around his shoulders. Some 
places on his face was cl'ar, and other places was as black 
as tar. His clothes was all full of pot-black, sut, and stuff, 
and his hair was standin' up jis' like bristles. 

If the Yankees had caught him they'd 'a' killed him. 
They caught a Rebel woman dressed like a man scouting 
around, and they hung her in some woods right out on the 
edge of town. She wore the men's clothes over her dress, 



412 Cedar Creek 

and they pulled 'em off, and those clothes laid thar on the 
ground in the woods till they rotted. I saw them. 

I always went with my aunt to milk in the evening at 
Mr. Wright's barn. On the night of the battle we was on 
our way to the barn when I heard somethin' movin' near 
the woodpile whar thar was lots of leaves. It was a 
scramblin' sound. Aunt heard it, too, and she said, "You 
see what that is." Then she went along to milk. 

I scraped the leaves away and found a little feller with 
yeller stripes on his pants. He was a Rebel and belonged 
to the artillery. I ran to get Doctor Garr. The doctor 
come back with me, and we picked the little feller up and 
carried him to a cabin in the doctor's yard. The leaves was 
stickin' all over him he was so bloody. A bullet had gone 
through his head. He did n't reco'nize any one — but while 
the doctor was washing the blood off he spoke several 
words. The only word we could make out was "Mother." 
He said that twicet. The next night he died, and he was 
buried behind the 'Piscopal church. Some one wrote to his 
parents. They was well-to-do, and they sent and got him. 

The mornin' after the battle Father took me out to 
show me a field whar thar had been some very hot fight- 
in'. I remember he led me by the hand. We saw one man 
not far from our house, right over a fence, who lay thar 
with the top of his head shot off. His brains and scalp 
were in his hat. Oh! it was the most scan'alous thing I 
ever saw in my life the way men was shot to pieces. 

We plough up bones out hyar on the fields yet, and 
bullets, and Yankee buttons and buckles with U.S.A. on 
'em. Until lately we found canteens, but those old can- 
teens are about rusted up now. 

'Bout a couple of days after the battle we had a roast of 



The Negro Village Girl 413 

beef in the oven. It had been sent over from headquarters, 
and it was a great large roast. We was to have part for 
roastin' it. Whenever the soldiers was goin' through the 
country hyar we kep' our front door fastened up. But this 
time a soldier come to the back door and says, "Got any- 
thing to eat?" 

He was a cavalryman, and another young feller was out 
at the gate with their horses. 

Mother told him, "No." 

Meat was meat then. We did n't often have any, and 
we was nearly dyin' for it. Mother hoped to turn the feller 
off, but he pushed right past her and went to the stove. 
He'd opened the stove door and was lookin' in when 
Mother whacked him 'cross the back with the broomstick. 
That made him leave the stove, and she whipped him out 
of the room. Then he turned on her and said, "I'll shoot 
you!" 

But jis' then he heard my sister, who had gone out the 
front door, holler to the guard over to Mr. Wright's — and 
of all the'Vttin' on horses you ever see ! Indeed, those two 
fellers was lively! and they went up the street with all 
their might. 

I used to have to go to mill to git a little dab of flour. 
I wasn't able to git much because I could n't carry it, 
and because we did n't have the money to pay for only a 
little. The mill was a mile and a half out on the pike. 
A few weeks after the fight, when things was settlin' down 
a little bit, I started for the mill with a neighbor woman. 

We'd got out hyar on the hill a short distance from 
town when we met three young fellers with commissary 
wagons that they was walkin' along beside of. They 
stopped when they got to us and asked whar we was goin'. 



414 Cedar Creek 

"We're goin' to mill," we said. 

"Stop hyar," the tallest one says. 

He grabbed the woman that was with me, but she pulled 
away and fell back. I said, "Aunt Fanny, don't run. 
Let 's fight 'em." 

I used to fight like a Turk when I was small. Any one 
that knowed me then will tell you so. I said to Aunt 
Fanny, "We '11 take and whip 'em out and go about our 
business." 

But when I looked around my help was gone — and she 
was a great large woman, too! She ran away across the 
field cl'ar back to town. She was a lightning bird. I did n't 
think she was running. I thought she was a-flyin'. I im- 
agine I hear her coat-tail whippin' yet as she ran. 

It was right funny, but I was so spunky I would n't 
run, and I fought those three fellers. I was a fat chunk, 
but at the same time I was strong and active. "I'm not 
afeard of you," I said. 

I fit with my hands and scratched and pulled. When 
they got hold of me thar was something doin', I tell you! 
I give that tallest feller all that was comin' to him. Every 
time he got near enough I'd rake with my finger-nails 
right down his face. I had him pretty well fagged out 
when he knocked me down, and then I used my feet as well 
as my hands. 

"Hold her feet!" he hollered to the other two. 

So one of the fellers caught hold of 'em, but he could n't 
keep his grip very well because I did n't have no shoes or 
stockings on, and I drawed back and kicked him head over 
heels. He was the smallest one. He kind of stayed back 
then. 

I grabbed the middle-sized feller by the hair with one 



The Negro Village Girl 415 

hand, and with the other I got hold of his vest and was 
jis' a-wringin' him. Then I thought it was time to use my 
teeth. I bit hke a horse. I bit him comin' and goin', and 
I'd holler, "Let go of me!" 

He went to smother me by puttin' his hand over my 
mouth, and I taken his hand in jis' like a crocodile. I bit 
him awful. I bit till the blood come. I could hear my teeth 
a-grindin'. I tried to eat him up. I'll bet he 's carryin' the 
marks to-day if he 's livin'. 

The feller swore at me, and said, "I'll shoot you if you 
don't let go of me." 

He was chokin' me, but I never let go my holt and he 'd 
have killed me if thar had n't been any one near. Mr. 
John Miller had a big farm right out on the pike, and as 
he was comin' out of his gate ridin' his horse he saw that 
some one was havin' trouble with the soldiers. So he gal- 
loped full speed to whar we was fightin'. He knew me 
well and my parents, and when he saw who it was he 
hollered: "Let go of that child! Let go of that child!" 

Mr. Miller took the three men right to headquarters, 
and they was punished. Their heads was shaved, and 
they was tied up by the thumbs. 

I went along to the mill. I was afeard not to do the 
errand when my mother had sent me. I 've got a-many a 
whippin' for not doin' as my parents told me. They was 
very strict with their children, and we had to obey 'em 
or have a very lawful excuse. So I went and got the flour 
at the mill, and when I reached home I was lookin' pretty 
raggedy, but I was n't hurt. 

I tell you it was a time through hyar when the North 
and South was fightin'. I never want to see another war. 



LIV 
The Black Fiddler ' 

I WAS a young feller at the time that Sheridan battle was 
fought, and was livin' on my master's farm on the edge of 
Middletown out beyond the Tiscopal church. That church 
was a hospital durin' the battle, and the army band used 
to practice in it while the troops was camped near hyar. 
A good many of the wounded died in thar and was buried 
in the churchyard. 

But the bodies had n't been in the ground a great while 
when they was dug up to be carried away. They was put 
in coffins — jus' long pine boxes — and the boxes was 
piled up against the back wall of the church and stayed 
thar near a month. I pried open a number of 'em and 
looked in. Some of the dead men was very natural and 
others was n't fit to look at. One man with a blanket 
wrapped about him was petrified, and his appearance 
had n't changed any since he was buried, only his hair 
had growed way down, and his beard had growed long. 

Thar was one night while those boxes was in the church- 
yard that a light come out of the church and went to 
whar they was piled as if some one was searchin' aroun* 
with a can'le. 

Another night something like a calf come out of the 
church and walked all aroun'. 

^ I spent a portion of a Sunday afternoon with him. He was a beak- 
nosed old man who related his spook stories with great vivacity and 
an unfathomable mixture of solemnity and hilariousness. 



The Black Fiddler 417 

The boxes was taken away presently, but the ghos'es 
stayed at the church or come thar often at night, and 
we 'd hear 'em walkin', groanin', and carryin' on. Other 
times we 'd hear the army band playin' in the church, and 
one night all of us who lived near was called out of our 
houses to listen at it. 

"Don't you hear the band?" we'd say one to the other. 

We beared it all right, and that 's the truth. Thar 's no 
story about that. The music sounded way off, but we 
could hear the lead horn start and the drums tap. The 
kittle drum would rattle it off, and the bass drum would 
go bum, bum, bum! You can hear somethin' knockin' 
thar at the 'Piscopal church now on a dark night. 

Right after the war we used to hear the soldiers ghos'es 
shootin' hyar all aroun' on the battlefield, and we'd hear 
horses in the back lane comin' klopity, klopity, klopity. 
The horses would ride right up to you, but you could n't 
see a thing. 

I know one man who lived out on a farm, and he come 
into the town one night to pra'r meetin'. As he was 
goin' home 'bout ten o'clock he beared the bugle and the 
rap of the kittle drum. While he was listenin' he seen a 
officer a-walkin' ahead of a squad of soldiers. The officer 
hollered "Haltr' to 'em, and they stopped. But the 
bugle kep' a-blowin', and pretty soon they marched off. 

Thar was another man who used to come to town pretty 
nigh every night, and some of the nights was tolerable dark. 
He was co'tin' hyar, I allow. Many a night he'd hear 
horses comin' 'cross the fields, and canteens and swords 
hittin' the sides of saddles, blangity, blangity, blangity! 

Down near Cedar Crick thar 's a ghos' in a barn. The 
ghos' is supposed to be a soldier that was killed tharabouts. 



418 Cedar Creek 

He has Yankee clothes on and wears cavalry boots that 
come way up to his knees. Some say he has no head, and 
others say he has a head and wears a plug hat. People see 
him after night, jus' about dusk, and he only comes at 
that time of the evening. He walks out of the haymow 
and part way down the haymow steps, and thar he'll 
stan'. For one while the railroad ran excursion trains so 
people could come and see the ghos'. I went thar to see 
him once, but I was 'fraid to go in the barn. 

The first person who ever seen the ghos' was a farmer 
by the name of Holt Hottel who had rented the place. 
He went to feed his horses jus' after sundown and was 
goin' to throw some hay down the hole to the feeding- 
room when he noticed the ghos'. But he thought it was a 
tramp, and he says, "Git out of hyar. I don't allow 
tramps in the barn on account of fire." 

The ghos' did n't say anything and jus' stood thar. 
Holt got mad then and tried to gouge the ghos' with his 
pitchfork, and the fork went right through the ghos' into 
the weather-boarding. That was evidence it was n't no 
tramp, and Holt jumped right down the hole into the 
feeding-room. His horses did n't git no hay that night, 
and for a good while afterward he fed 'em tolerable early. 

Holt's father used to laugh at him 'bout that ghos', but 
one evenin' Holt met the ol' man comin' from the barn as 
hard as he could run. Oh! he was comin' from thar skatin'. 
He did n't laugh at Holt no mo'. 

Another time a black man who'd gone to the barn a 
little late to feed the stock come out of there a-hustlin', 
and he was whoopin' as if he was goin' to be killed. 

But the ghos' did nobody no harm, and Holt got so 
he 'd go in thar any time of night. He become accustomed 




THE SPOOK IN THE BARX 



The Black Fiddler 419 

to seeing this thing and paid no attention to it. Once 
when he threshed his wheat the grain was too damp to 
put in sacks, and he left it on the barn floor a few days to 
dry. Thar was some danger that it would be stolen, and 
he stayed in the barn nights to guard it and slept on an 
or lounge he carried out from the house. He said that 
night after night he went to sleep with that feller standin' 
on the haymow steps. He seen him perfectly plain, even 
to the straps on his boots what he hooked his fingers in to 
pull 'em on. 

Thar 's people who have tried all sorts of ways to see 
that ghos' and never could, and thar 's plenty of others 
who have seen it. I know this — that Holt Hottel was as 
reliable a man as thar was in the state. His word was as 
good as his bond. 

Down at Belle Grove House they used to hear a buggy 
drive up there of a night, and a bell would tap for a waiter 
to come and take the team. Another queer thing at that 
house was a door that would n't keep shut. The good ol' 
Christian woman who lived there said she'd shut it and 
go sit down and the door would swing open. 

I used to be told that the way to learn to play the 
fiddle was to go to a graveyard with it and start practisin'. 
You had to go at night, and you could n't have any one 
with you. If you could stand it thar you could learn to 
play anything. I've heard ol' people say that often. I 
bought a fiddle tereckly after the war, and started in to 
play by ear. That 's the best way, but I was n't makin' 
much progress, and I decided to see if it was true that you 
could learn to play in a graveyard in one night. I was 
'fraid to go to the regular graveyard. So I went to the 
Tiscopal churchyard. We called that a graveyard, though 



420 Cedar Creek 

nobody had ever been buried thar but soldiers, and they 
had been taken up. 

I got a little oV box to sit on, and I goes thar and sets 
myself down. The time was nine o'clock as near as I can 
git at it now. I set thar and chuned up my fiddle. Then 
I struck into, " 01' Dan Tucker." That 's the devil's chune, 
you know, and it 's the first thing the devil will learn you 
to play. Well, sir, I set thar and learned to play that real 
good. 

Afterwards I tried "Dixie" and kep' at it till I could 
play that tolerable good, too, but I 'd miss some notes. 
Then I heard a noise, and I begun to feel kind o' jubous. 
However, I paid no attention to it. I played away harder 
than ever — tweeny, tweeny, twang! — so as not to git 
skeered, and I says to myself, "I won't let no ghos'es 
bother me." 

But pretty soon I heard something over back of the 
church — bangity, bang! It was a sound jus' like you 
make when you hit a table leaf and the leaf goes flap, 
flap! I was listenin' with both ears and still a-playin' my 
fiddle when some hot steam come about me, and that 
steam was so warm and fainty it almost made me sick. 
I thought: "This ain't natural. Thar mus' be ghos'es 
hyar somewhar." 

And yet I could n't see 'em. If I had I'd been like a 
hog that sees the wind. You know how hogs run and 
squeal and pick up straws sometimes. That 's when they 
see the wind. If you take a little matter from the corner 
of a hog's eye and rub it in your eye you can see the wind, 
and it 's jus' as red as blood. You would n't want to see 
it but once. It would skeer you to death. 

I used to hear ol'-time people say that thar could n't 



The Black Fiddler 421 

every one see a ghos', and that the ghos'es took the form 
of steam when they appeared to a person who could n't 
see 'em. The mo' I studied 'bout it the mo' skeered I was. 
I put my hand up to see whether my hat was on my head, 
and I found my hair was standin' straight up and had 
carried my hat with it. 

Jus' then some steam come aroun' me so hot it scorched 
my face, and I throwed my fiddle down and ran. If I 
could have stood it to stay in the churchyard an hour or 
two longer I could have played anything. Yes, indeedy! 
But if I 'd kep' on very likely I 'd have died of fright. 

The closer I got to home the mo' skeered I was and the 
faster I ran. I made the last rod in 'bout two jumps, and 
as soon as I was in the house I slammed the door behind 
me. 

Nex' morhin' I went and got my fiddle, and I did n't 
go thar no mo'. The night had been dewy, and the fiddle 
was pretty near ruined. It was n't no account much after- 
ward. The glue that fastened the pieces together had 
softened, and the strings had all got wet and had busted off. 

What little I learned later in fiddlin' I learned at home. 
Finally I throwed the ol' fiddle away. If any ghos'es 
wanted it they could have it and practice on it all they 
wanted. 

We don't have many ghos'es now like they used to have 
long ago. Thar was a time when the ol' people did n't die 
at all. They lived to be one hundred and twenty years ol' 
and then turned into monkeys, apes, and owls. They 'd 
jus' go off and be wild animals awhile and afterwards turn 
into ghos'es. Those ol'-time ghos'es used to travel, but 
now there 's so much preachin' they generally keep very 
quiet. 



422 Cedar Creek 

Aroun' hyar it was only a few years back that we 'd see 
plenty of strange sights and hear plenty of strange noises. 
We don't see and hear them things so much now because 
the battlefield has been so stirred up by ploughin' and 
raisin' crops. That 's drivin' nearly all the battlefield 
ghos'es away, but there 's some left yet, and there 's other 
ghos'es, too. Last year a colored man died quite sudden 
up at the Junction, and he 's jus' keepin' things warm up 
thar. The people in the house whar he lived don't git no 
comfort at all. But if I was in their place he would n't 
trouble me. I'd say, "You go 'way from hyar. I done 
bought this house now." 

Then I 'd turn the doors and windows upside down so the 
fastenings would be on the other side. A ghos' can't git 
in if you do that. 

Yes, sir, thar 's still ghos'es. I can take you out with me 
to-night, and if you'll look across my left shoulder I '11 
show you something. 



THE END 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



